On the morning of January 7th, two Islamist terrorists broke into the offices of the French satirical newspaper Charlie Hebdo in Paris. The two masked gunmen, identified as brothers Cherif and Said Kouachi, opened fire, killing eleven and injuring eleven others. The gunmen identified themselves as members of Al-Qaeda’s branch in Yemen, which ultimately took responsibility for the attack. Related shootings followed the attack on Charlie Hebdo in the Île-de-France region, where Islamic terrorists killed five and injured eleven others.

With France on high alert, the manhunt began for the suspects, with a search that extended beyond Paris. The day after the shooting, France’s interior minister announced that 88,000 police and security forces were taking part in the search for the suspects throughout the country. The same day, officials were able to focus their search; they investigated several towns and forests located to the north of Paris near a gas station in Villers-Cotterêts, which had been robbed by two heavily armed men identified as the two missing suspects.

Finally, on Friday January 9th, two days after the initial shooting, police discovered the location of the two suspects. They had taken hostages at a signage company in Dammartin-en-Goële, and were killed by police when they emerged from the building. Several hostages were killed at a similar raid at a Paris supermarket, while others were reported to have been freed. The hostage-taker at the supermarket, Amedy Coulibaly, was identified as an associate of the two suspects.

A month gave the people of France, as well as the international community, time to reflect on the traumatic, sobering events of early January. On January 11th, more than three million people, including world leaders, participated in anti-terrorism rallies in Paris and elsewhere in France. It was the largest gathering in the nation’s capital in history – individuals of all nationalities, from all walks of life, marched in the rallies. Some carried signs that bore the now-famous phrase which honored the journalists lost in the attacks, “Je suis Charlie” – “I am Charlie”. The day was emotional and peaceful, serving to unify the nation, as well as the world, against the iniquities of terrorism and needless violence.