NYC Sept. 11 Museum Launches Interactive Timeline of Tragedy

Alice Hoagland knew what her son was capable of.

So when she learned that his plane, United Airlines Flight 93, had likely been hijacked by terrorists, Hoagland did the only logical thing there was to do. She called him on his cell phone, told him she loved him and then gave him a final piece of motherly advice: Overpower the terrorists and take control of the plane.

"Mark, apparently it's terrorists and they're hellbent on crashing the aircraft, so if you can, try to take over the aircraft," she said in a voice mail message to her son, Mark Bingham, at 9:57 a.m. on Sept. 11, 2001. "I love you, sweetie. Good luck. Goodbye."


That message between mother and son can now be heard online, along with nearly a dozen other audio recordings and videos from the day of the Sept. 11 attacks, on an interactive timeline launched today by the National September 11 Memorial and Museum in New York City.

The chronological timeline offers audio recordings of phone calls from victims to their loved ones, the oral history of survivors, and video and photographs of some of the day's most vivid and terrifying moments. One image takes the viewer inside the dust cloud created by the falling towers. Another follows first responders rushing to the scene.

Some of the audio clips, shared by family members of the victims, can be difficult to listen to. In one, Brian Sweeney, a passenger on United Airlines Flight 175, leaves a goodbye voice mail for his wife, Julie Sweeney.

"Hi Jules, this is Brian. Listen, I'm on an airplane that's been hijacked. If things don't go well -- and it's not looking good -- I just want you to know I absolutely love you," he says. "I want you to do good, go have a good time, same to my parents and everybody. And I just totally love you. And I'll see you when you get there. Bye, babe. I wanted to call you."

Blake Allison, 61, lost his wife, Anna S.W. Allison, in the attacks. He said documenting the events of September 11 online is the right thing to do but that the near-constant stream of images from the tragedy over the past decade has made it difficult for family members of the victims to move on. "We're not the only people who have lost loved ones to sudden and violent deaths. But you don't get reminded of it every day, which is what's been going on for ten years," Allison told AOL News in a phone interview. "I can't turn on the TV, the radio or go outside without encountering some reminder," he said. "I have often said to people, I've got a third life that nobody knows about. I've got my home life, my work life, and then I've got my 9/11 life."

Many of the objects on the timeline would have been unremarkable on any other day. But nearly 10 years after the attacks, the most ordinary objects from Sept. 11 displayed on the website -- the passenger manifests for the hijacked planes, the ballot from a primary election in New York City that day and even an informational pamphlet from a Peace Corps recruiting event held at the World Trade Center that morning -- are chilling.

Joe Daniels, president of the museum, said curators wanted to present the most painful material respectfully without whitewashing it. As a result, visitors to the site can look at thumbnails and descriptions of the videos and clips before deciding to view them.

"We try to present the material as sensitively as possible and not sensationalize it. Things aren't popping up on your screen. We try to give people the tools to modulate their experience on the site," Daniels told AOL News.

"At the same time, there is no getting around the fact that the material in this event was simply wrenching," he continued. "The people who got up that morning and became a part of this event were just like the rest of us, and they should have been able to go home at the end of the day just like the rest of us."

Visitors to the site can share the images and clips from the timeline, created in the very early days of social media, on Twitter and Facebook. Daniels said he hoped the feature would help educate younger generations about what happened that day.

The National September 11 Memorial and Museum is scheduled to open in New York City in September, on the 11th anniversary of the attacks.