Osama bin Laden was born in Riyadh, Saudi Arabia, in 1957. He was the son of a wealthy construction magnate and grew up in luxury. After studying economics and management in college, bin Laden joined the Afghan resistance against Soviet forces in the 1980s. He formed his own militant group, Al-Qaeda, in 1988, aiming to fight against Western influence in the Middle East. Bin Laden gained notoriety for his involvement in the 1998 bombings of American embassies in Africa and the 2000 attack on the USS Cole. His most infamous act was the September 11, 2001, terrorist attacks on the World Trade Center and the Pentagon, which killed nearly 3,000 people. Bin Laden spent the next decade in hiding, until he was killed by United States Navy SEALs in 2011. He is remembered as a ruthless terrorist who brought global attention to extremist Islam and its dangerous potential for violence.
