A decade after 9/11, President Barack Obama – along with Vice President Joe Biden and Secretary of State Hillary Clinton – sits in the White House Situation Room. It's a tense wait for updates on Operation Neptune Spear: a top-secret mission that sent SEAL Team Six into a compound in Pakistan to kill Osama Bin Laden, the al-Qaeda leader and mastermind of the 2001 attacks.

The operation took just 40 minutes and was a success. Bin Laden’s body was buried at sea, and crowds celebrated the news outside the White House and at Ground Zero.

Now marvel at the earliest photos of the United States

Liked this? Click on the Follow button above for more great stories from loveEXPLORING

America's most powerful photos from the last 150 years