For four hours today heads were bowed at Ground Zero in New York, as the names of all 2,974 victims were read out in memorial to the terrorist attacks of September 11, 2001.
A total of 208 people took part in the roll call including Tracy Anne Larkey, whose husband Robin from Surrey was killed in the attacks. “I miss him so much and I know he would be so proud of our beautiful boys Nicholas, Oliver and William,” Mrs Larkey said.
Thousands of relatives of those who died in the attacks gathered in Zuccotti Park in Lower Manhattan, overlooking the site of the World Trade Center on the seventh anniversary of its collapse.
John McCain and Barack Obama were due to arrive at the site later today but first Michael Bloomberg, the Mayor of New York City, led one of four silences to mark the second the Twin Towers of the World Trade Centre were hit by airliners, and the moments they fell.
“It lives forever in our hearts and in our history, a tragedy that unites us in a common memory and a common story,” he said.
“We return this morning as New Yorkers, Americans and global citizens, remembering the innocent people from 95 nations and territories that lost their lives together that day.”
Many of the relatives of those who died held photographs of their loved ones or wore T-shirts bearing images of the victims.
Earlier, President Bush led a moment of silence on the South Lawn of the White House.
Across the Potomac River, a new memorial at the Pentagon was dedicated as the names of the victims on the plane that crashed en route to Virginia were read aloud to mourners.
In Manhattan victims’ families descended a ramp to the lowest level of the World Trade Center site to honour those who died and pay their respects.
A series of parachutists who unfurled the United States’ flag below them descended from the sky as families observed a silence to mark the fall of the North tower.
Other relatives signed the steel beams that will be used in the construction of the National September 11 Memorial and Museum.
The beams travelled around the US through 25 states last year, gathering tens of thousands of signatures as part of the September 11 Tribute Exhibition.
Permanent memorials are years away from being built in New York and Pennsylvania.
As in past years, two bright blue beams of light will shine at night on the New York City skyline, in memory of the fallen towers.
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