The year is 1918 and it was at the end of World War I when the Ottoman Empire collapsed.
The Ottoman Empire had ruled Arab lands for almost 500 years.
Britain and France stepped in, dividing the land between them, forming the modern boundaries of the Middle East.
In 1948 came the creation of the Jewish state Israel.
Originally the U.S. had intended to partition Palestine into a Arab state and a Jewish state.
The Arabs rejected the plan, because they viewed it as unfair.
This sparked a decade long feud between Israelis and Palestinians and the surrounding Arab countries.
Osama Bin Laden saw Palestinians' defeat as "Great humliations."
He thought that the cause of Israel's success was because of America's support.
Bin Laden followed the teachings of Sayyid Qutb, who was an Egyptian credited with inspiring today's Jihad movement.
Qutb studied abroad in American in the late 1940's for two years.
He became disgusted at what he saw was the depravity of the American culture.
He wanted to reinstate the "height of civilization", the 7th century Arabian, when Muhammad and Muslim armies ruled.
Qutb urged all Muslims to take up arms against all non-believers, including all Muslims who didn't believe in his brand of Islam.
Qutb's philosophy and personal story, would be used by Osama and Al Qaeda and be an inspiration for revenge.
In 1954, he was imprisoned for planning the assassination of Egyptian president Gamal Abdel Nasser.
While in prison he was regularly beaten and tortured.
This gave him the strength to galvanize and writing his supporters.
In 1966, Gamal had Qutb executed in attempts to kill the movement he started.
That only made Qutb a Martyr and his story and his book "Milestones" inspiration for generations of extremists, including Ayman al-Zawahirl.
Al-Zawahirl became bin Ladin's right hand man.
In 1966, Zawahirl founded a militant cell when he was 15.
He wanted to overthrow the Egyptian government.
In 1972, he joined the Egyptian Islamic Jihad movement, with it's goal of establishing a theocratic Islamic state in Egypt.
Zawahirl was imprisoned in 1981 in connection of the assassination of Anwar Sadat.
He was beaten and tortured like Qutb.
This strengthened Zawahirl's extremism.
Years earlier, in 1979 the Soviet Union invaded Afghanistan to aid the communists in the Afghan civil war.
Bin Ladin had been working to train, recruit and finance Arab freedom fighters.
Known as the Majad Hai Din, they declared holy war against Soviet troops in Afghanistan.
During this war is when bin Ladin meets Zawahirl, who led a faction of the Egyptian Islamic Jihad after his release in prison in 1984.
In 1989, Majad Hai Din pushed the last group of Russians out of Afghanistan.
This is when Osama bin Ladin and Abdullah Azzam from Al-Qaeda.
1990 Saddam Hussein invades Kuwait and the U.S. send troops to its allies in Saudia Arabia.
Bin Ladin would site this as one of the motivations behind the September 11th attacks.
Bin Ladin and Zawahirl work closely together, eventually merging their two terrorist networks.
Osama bin Ladin believed violence would force the U.S. to flee the Middle East entirely and allow groups like Al-Qaeda to take control.
1993 World Trade Center Bombing
After this, West endured multiple attacks.
Among them the 1993 World Trade Center bombing, the U.S. embassy bombing in Kenya and Tanzania in 1998 and the 2000 bombing of the USS Cole in Yemen.
The 1998 Embassy Bombings of Kenya and Tanzania
The 2000 bombing of the USS Cole in Yemen
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