( CNN ) -- Two years later , the story of Osama bin Laden 's death remains a high-interest topic . Here are some of the key stories we 've published since the world 's most-wanted terrorist was killed , from the first breaking news story to the latest disputes over what happened that day . News breaks . President Obama announced bin Laden 's death shortly before midnight ET on May 1 , 2011 , more than an hour after the Internet and social media began exploding with reports of his demise . You can see here how the news unfolded on our live blog , including video of Obama 's historic announcement and jubilant celebrations across the United States . The main story that followed , which announced the end of the decade-long manhunt , had more than 21,000 comments and nearly 130,000 Facebook recommendations . The news also set what was then a Twitter record as people posted an average of 3,400 messages per second . The aftermath . In the days and weeks following the raid , more details would be released about how it all went down . How did the U.S. know bin Laden was there ? Who took part in the mission , and who knew about it ? Why was bin Laden killed instead of taken prisoner ? Over time , some of the details initially put out by the White House were clarified or changed . Some are still disputed today . There were several other headaches for U.S. officials to deal with . There was a full-throated debate about whether to release grisly photos of bin Laden 's body to the public . But in the end , Obama , not wanting to incite further violence , chose to keep the photos classified . `` We do n't need to spike the football , '' he told CBS News . The killing also created tension that needed to be smoothed over with Pakistan , which was outraged that the United States chose to carry out the bin Laden mission there without first informing its leaders . And then there was the downed helicopter U.S. officials hoped to retrieve from bin Laden 's compound because of security concerns over the stealth technology of its unusual tail assembly . A few days after the raid , U.S. officials unveiled videos of bin Laden that were recovered in the raid . You can watch all of them here . Perhaps the most well-known video of this stash shows a hunched-over bin Laden , draped in a blanket , using a remote control to watch television . Also taken in the raid were documents , disks , thumb drives , computers and other intelligence that would be pored over for evidence of further terrorist plots . Years later . After bin Laden 's death , much praise was heaped on the elite Navy SEALs who carried out the raid : the anonymous `` quiet professionals '' who live by a code to keep their sensitive missions secret . But one former member of the team , Matt Bissonnette , detailed the mission in his 2012 best-seller `` No Easy Day . '' The book started a debate about honor , ethics and cultural values in the military ; the Pentagon said Bissonnette included classified material in the book and did n't follow protocol for pre-publication review . The raid was also portrayed in the film `` Zero Dark Thirty , '' which focuses on the bin Laden manhunt and was nominated for five Academy Awards . Three U.S. senators -- Dianne Feinstein , Carl Levin and John McCain -- called the film `` grossly inaccurate and misleading , '' especially the movie 's suggestion that harsh interrogations helped find bin Laden . The filmmakers responded by saying the film condensed 10 years of intelligence work into a 2Â½ hour film . This year , Esquire magazine published a profile on a Navy SEAL who said he was the one who shot bin Laden . His account contradicted some of the details in Bissonnette 's book . Another SEAL , however , told Peter Bergen , CNN 's national security analyst , that the Esquire story is `` complete BS . '' Reflecting on the two-year anniversary of bin Laden 's death , Bergen said the U.S. forces may have killed the man , but they did not kill his ideology . Al Qaeda has now morphed into a `` loose jihadist ideological movement '' that spawned the Boston marathon bombing , Bergen said , and it is this `` Binladenism '' that is still very much a threat to Americans .
It has been two years since Osama bin Laden was captured by American forces . But the story , and the controversy surrounding it , continues to generate interest . Remember the night the story broke and get caught up on the most recent developments .