The World Trade Center, located in the heart of Manhattan in New York City, was built in 1966 and instantly became an iconic landmark of the city.
The Twin Towers, as they were known, rose more than 1,360 feet above the ground, each with 110 stories.
On this day, February 26, 1993, the World Trade Center was bombed and more than 1,000 people were injured.
ON THIS DAY IN HISTORY, FEBRUARY 25, 1964, MUHAMMAD ALI KNOWS SONNY LISTON TO WIN THE FIRST WORLD TITLE
The morning of Monday, February 26, 1993, was a winter day like any other in New York: cold and windy, as thousands of people went to work, according to many reports.
About 50,000 people were inside the World Trade Center complex, more than 40,000 of them in the Twin Towers, according to the 9/11 Memorial website.
A bomb exploded in the parking lot of the World Trade Center in 1993. (David Handschuh/NY Daily News Archive via Getty Images)
At around 12 noon, a group of terrorists, including a man named Ramzi Yousef, drove a van into the public parking lot below the Towers.
SURVIVOR OR 9/11 WORLD TRADE CENTER ATTACKS, 1993 BOMB ATTACK SEEKS KIDNEY DONOR
The van exploded about 17 minutes after noon, creating a 100-foot crater inside the north tower, according to the FBI website.
Six people near the bomb site died almost immediately: John DiGiovanni, Robert Kirkpatrick, Stephen A. Knapp, William Macko, Wilfredo Mercado and Mónica Rodríguez Smith.
Hundreds of people were treated for smoke inhalation and broken bones after the bombing of the World Trade Center in Manhattan in 1993. (Ken Murray/NY Daily News Archive via Getty Images)
Stock trader Timothy Lang was parking his car in the garage when the bomb exploded.
9/11 FIREFIGHTER MOURNS HIS TWO FDNY BROTHERS WHO RAN TO THE WORLD TRADE CENTER TO SAVE LIVES
“They physically picked me up and threw me into the air… My whole body was compressed as if they were completely squeezing it,” he recalled at the 9/11 Memorial Museum.
Hundreds of people suffered smoke inhalation and broken bones.
The attack occurred around noon on February 26, 1993 in the heart of New York City. (David Handschuh/NY Daily News Archive via Getty Images)
The mastermind behind the attack was Ramzi Yousef, who arrived in New York nearly five and a half months early after learning how to make a bomb in Afghanistan, according to the 9/11 Memorial.
He was working with six other terrorists.
A LOOK INSIDE A WORLD TRADE CENTER, ONE OF THE MOST SYMBOLIC LANDMARKS OF THE UNITED STATES
He visited the World Trade Center several times before the attack, the 9/11 Memorial reports.
Yousef was captured in February 1995 and sentenced two years later.
In July 1993, the State Department offered a $2 million reward for information leading to Yousef's arrest, according to the State Department website.
CLICK HERE TO SUBSCRIBE TO OUR LIFESTYLE NEWSLETTER
At that time, Yousef had disappeared underground.
“US law enforcement officials believed Yousef had escaped to Pakistan, but had little reliable information about his location,” the State Department website notes.
Yousef was later captured in February 1995 and convicted two years later, the FBI website says.
The World Trade Center was bombed on February 26, 1993, in a shocking attack on the Manhattan landmark. (Ken Murray/David Handschuh/NY Daily News Archive via Getty Images)
This would not be the only attack on the Twin Towers.
Nearly 3,000 people died on September 11, 2001, in terrorist attacks that shocked the world and sparked major U.S. efforts to combat terrorism, History.com notes.
The 1993 attack on the World Trade Center was a deadly precursor to the larger attacks of 2001.
“We later learned from Yousef that his plan for the Trade Center was much more sinister,” the FBI notes.
CLICK HERE TO GET THE FOX NEWS APP
“I wanted the bomb to take down one tower and the debris to take down the second.”
The site continues: “The attack turned out to be a kind of deadly dress rehearsal for 9/11; with the help of Yousef's uncle, Khalid Sheikh Mohammed, al-Qaeda would later return to make Yousef's nightmarish vision a reality.”
For more lifestyle articles, visit www.foxnews.com/lifestyle
