At 8:46 a.m. in New York — 2:46 p.m. in Italy and San Marino — a minute of silence will mark the moment the first hijacked plane struck the North Tower of the World Trade Center. Twenty-five years after September 11, 2001, San Marino still carries a direct and painful connection to the tragedy: among the 2,977 victims was Steven Giorgetti, son of Sammarinese emigrants to the United States.
Giorgetti was at the World Trade Center for a business meeting just as the attack began. At 8:46 a.m., American Airlines Flight 11 crashed into the North Tower, followed at 9:03 a.m. by United Airlines Flight 175, which struck the South Tower. At 9:37 a.m., the Pentagon was hit, and shortly after 10 a.m. a fourth plane crashed near Shanksville, Pennsylvania, after passengers rose up against the hijackers.
It was a day that transformed the United States and reshaped the global balance of power, with consequences that, in the years that followed, indirectly reached Mount Titano as well. The international fight against terrorism financing led to tighter controls on financial systems and anti-money laundering rules worldwide. Subsequent Moneyval assessments revealed shortcomings in San Marino’s regulations, ushering in a period of deep reform that would shape the Republic in the years to come.
Yet on this anniversary, San Marino’s thoughts turn above all to Steven Giorgetti and the tragic twist of fate that brought him inside the Twin Towers that very morning of September 11. His story is one of nearly three thousand lives cut short in the attacks that, a quarter of a century ago, changed the course of history.
