Initially, back in 1996, during the dawn of the Internet, our chess database company started off with a static HTML website, in nice yellow, with blinking text! 

Initially the news page was developed by Frederic Friedel, with substantial assistance from GM Dr John Nunn. Together the two had to find out how the Internet worked. They produced a template driven page with HTML files individually uploaded to a server. It ran for a half a decade, but then it became necessary to install a more efficient and effective system.

In 2001 the news page got a big makeover – ChessBase transitioned to a modern, database-driven news portal. After months of development it was finally launched, and went online – on September 12, 2001! The very first report we uploaded was on the terrorist destruction of the World Trade Center in New York. Here it is, in fairly much the same form it was published twenty years ago.

World Trade Center destroyed

9/12/2001 – Yesterday, in one of the most horrifying terrorist atrocities in history, the World Trade Center in New York was destroyed. We extend our deepest sympathies to the people of America. Our thoughts and feelings are with the victims and their families. The World Trade Center had a special meaning for chess. In 1995 the World Championship was staged on the Observation Deck on the 107th floor. We look back at in a commemorative picture gallery.

The World Trade Center

World Chess Championship Site 1995

In 1995 the PCA world championship, sponsored by Intel, was held between Garry Kasparov and Vishy Anand, ranked first and second in the world. The prize fund was 1,500,000 US$, with 2/3 for the winner.

Mayor Rudy Giuliani makes first move of the WCh match – on September 11, 1995!

Here are some pictures I took of the event, which was staged on the Observation Deck at the 107th floor of the World Trade Center, 400 meters above New York City's financial center Wall Street.

Crossing from New Jersey to New York on the Staten Island Ferry

Kasparov pondering a move on the 107th story of the World Trade Center

Audience watching the moves of game 16

GM Yasser Seirawan explaining the position in the VIP room

Following chess moves on the observation deck

Garry Kasparov ponders a move in the glass cabin built for the players.

Thomas Friedel feeling a bit queasy while looking down on Manhattan...

...from the very top of the World Trade Center

Looking back from the ferry to New Jersey after the games.

Also read or watch: 

• Frederic Friedel: How I experienced 9/11 – The ringleader of the hijackers was Mohamed Atta, who conducted his post-graduate studies at the Technical University of Hamburg, and had for years stayed in a flat in short walking distance from where we lived. Shocking.
• Netflix Turning Point: 9/11 and the War on Terror: a five-part docuseries which documents the terrorist attacks that occurred on September 11, 2001 in New York City's Lower Manhattan, as well as the events that took place both in Afghanistan and the United States, which led to the attacks.
• Netflix Turning Point: Generation 9/11: With firsthand accounts of the attacks and their aftermath, this thought-provoking documentary explores how 9/11 shaped a generation, 25 years after it occurred.