Timeline

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Sept. 1, 2010 In a prime-time address from the Oval Office, Obama says, "We have sent our young men and women to make enormous sacrifices in Iraq and spent vast resources abroad at a time of tight budgets at home ... Through this remarkable chapter in the history of the United States and Iraq, we have met our responsibility. Now it's time to turn the page."

Sept. 12, 2010 New York Post: "Nine Years Later, Finally Progress at Ground Zero"

Oct. 5, 2010 Shahzad, the would-be Times Square bomber, is sentenced to life in prison after pleading guilty to charges of conspiracy to use a weapon of mass destruction and attempting an act of terrorism

Oct. 22, 2010 WikiLeaks releases a cache of nearly 400,000 U.S. military documents from the Iraq war that the organization says indicate about 15,000 civilian deaths that were not previously recorded

Nov. 15, 2010 New York Times: "U.S. Plan Offers Path to Ending Afghan Combat"

Jan. 2, 2011 Obama signs the James Zadroga 9/11 Health and Compensation Act, which provides $4.3 billion in health care coverage for 9/11 responders and volunteers and expands eligibility for compensation for victims

May 1, 2011 U.S. operatives kill bin Laden in Abbottabad, Pakistan. Obama confirms bin Laden's death in a televised address to the American people, saying, "Justice has been done." Crowds gather outside the White House and at Ground Zero to mark the occasion. Michael Carroll, a 27-year-old firefighter from Brooklyn who lost his father, also a firefighter, on 9/11, says, "This is something that this country, these families, my family, has been waiting for for so long." For the third time in a decade, TIME puts a red X on its cover, over the face of bin Laden

May 2, 2011 Bin Laden's body is buried at sea. Ismail Haniya, the head of Hamas, says, "We condemn the assassination and the killing of an Arab holy warrior ... We regard this as a continuation of the American policy based on oppression and the shedding of Muslim and Arab blood."

June 22, 2011 Obama announces that he is beginning the long-anticipated withdrawal from Afghanistan

Sept. 10, 2011 The Flight 93 National Memorial in Shanksville, Pa., opens to the public

Sept. 11, 2011 The National 9/11 Memorial is dedicated. It opens to the public Sept. 12