Do you remember 9/11?

[Mr. Morden]

Yes, of course I remember it.

Serious question: How young would a kid have been (on average) on 9/11 for them not to remember it 15 years later?  I have some fragmentary memories of when I was 3, but that was of course family stuff, as I didn't know anything about world events back then.  Would someone who was 6 on 9/11 have been aware of it, or been able to remember the day years later?  Where's the cutoff?

[Mr. Morden]

OK, here's another question.  Before 9/11, how many of you:

1) Knew who Osama bin Laden was, and
2) Knew what the Taliban was.

Since I was already an adult (and a news junkie) in 2001, yes on both counts for me.  But I don't think that, for example, my mother had ever heard of either of them before 9/11, as she doesn't really follow world events that closely.  Of course, once 9/11 happened, name recognition for both bin Laden and the Taliban reached ~100% overnight.

[Mr. Morden]

While I don't think I recognized the term "al Qaeda" before 9/11, I knew who Osama bin Laden was, because he'd been talked about since the 1998 African embassy bombings.  And the Taliban had just recently been in the news in the summer of 2001, because of those Western aid workers who were jailed there.