How many days and weeks until September 11th?

Four airliners were hijacked over the eastern United States on the morning of September 11th 2001. Two were flown into the towers of the World Trade Center at 8.46 and 9.03 local time, 1.46 and 2.03 in the afternoon in Britain. A third struck the Pentagon. The fourth came down in a field in Pennsylvania after the passengers, who had learned by telephone what was happening, tried to retake the aircraft. Both towers collapsed within an hour and three-quarters. In all 2,977 people were killed, from more than ninety countries.

In Britain the afternoon was spent watching. Tony Blair abandoned a speech in Brighton and returned to London; the City closed early; airspace over central London was restricted. The next day NATO invoked Article 5, its collective defence clause, for the first time in its history.

Sixty-seven British nationals were among the dead. On September 13th the band at the Changing of the Guard outside Buckingham Palace played The Star-Spangled Banner, and the crowd, many of them Americans, stood in silence. The Queen attended a memorial service at St Paul’s the next day.

A garden of remembrance for the British dead was laid out in Grosvenor Square, across from what was then the American embassy. Carved into the oak above its pillars is a line from the Queen’s message of condolence, read in New York that month: ‘Grief is the price we pay for love.’

Born on September 11th: star sign, birthstone and birth flower

D. H. Lawrence and Harry Connick Jr — both named above — share this star sign with everyone else born in the same window.

None of this is settled fact in the way the history above is — zodiac dates, birthstones and birth flowers are conventions rather than laws, and different sources hedge them slightly differently. The birthstone is the most standardised of the three (set by the trade in 1912 and revised since); the birth flower is the least, resting on Victorian tradition rather than any governing body.

Gift ideas for a September 11th birthday

A small, themed starting point rather than a shopping list — sapphire for the stone, Virgo for the sign, and the sky itself on the day.

September birthstone necklace

A simple pendant in the actual September birthstone colour, from a long-running UK jewellery brand.

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Virgo constellation necklace

Stainless steel, sign selectable at checkout — choose Virgo for a September 11th birthday.

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Personalised birth flower & birthstone disc

Engraved with a name, the September birthstone and the aster — both in one pendant, in a gift box.

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Personalised star map print

The actual night sky over a chosen place on September 11th, whichever year — a print rather than jewellery.

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