Oklahoma City Bombing
April 19,1995

The Oklahoma City bombing was a terrorist attack on April 19, 1995, in which the Alfred P. Murrah Federal Building, a U.S. government office complex in downtown Oklahoma City, Oklahoma, was destroyed, killing 168 people. It is the deadliest domestic terrorist attack in the history of the United States and was the deadliest act of terrorism within U.S. borders until September 11, 2001. Two men later convicted of the bombing, Timothy McVeigh and his friend Terry Nichols, had sympathies with the anti-government militia movement. McVeigh later claimed that his aim was to avenge the Waco Siege.

The bombing

At 9:02 a.m. CDT on Wednesday, April 19, 1995, in the street in front (the north side) of the Alfred P. Murrah federal building, a rented Ryder truck containing about 5,000 pounds (2,300 kg) of explosive material exploded. The truck bomb was composed of ammonium nitrate, an agricultural fertilizer, and nitromethane, a highly volatile motor-racing fuel - a mixture also known as Kinepak or ANFO (ammonium nitrate/fuel oil). The effects of the blast could even be felt in Bridge Creek, which is about 30 miles away from the Murrah Building. However, according to conclusions in the report by Brigadier General Benton K. Partin, the building appears to have been destroyed by the detonation of explosives carefully placed at four critical junctures on supporting columns within the building.

In the moments after news of the explosion hit national press, sketches of Middle Eastern men were posted. Numerous terrorist groups were targeted. It made logical sense to America, as two years prior, the last attempt of a building being bombed was the World Trade Center in New York. It would not be until a few days later that these reports would be proven wrong.

Within 90 minutes  of the explosion Timothy McVeigh, a Gulf War veteran, was arrested, traveling north out of Oklahoma City on Interstate 35 near Perry in Noble County, after being pulled over for driving without a license plate by an Oklahoma State Trooper. At McVeigh's trial, the United States Government asserted that the motivation for the attack was to avenge the Waco Siege and Ruby Ridge. McVeigh called the casualties in the bombing "collateral damage" and compared the bombing to actions he had taken during the Gulf War. The attack was staged on the second anniversary of the Waco incident. McVeigh is thought to have modeled the bombing on a similar event described in The Turner Diaries, a white supremacist novel that was found with McVeigh when he was arrested. Some have suggested that the date was purposely chosen in these instances as it coincides with the beginning of the American Revolutionary War and the final attack on the Branch Dravidians at Waco. The effect of the bombing on the city was immense. Beyond the death toll  - 168 confirmed dead including 19 children and one rescue worker, plus an unidentified leg indicating a possible 169th - the bomb injured over 800 people and destroyed or damaged more than 300 buildings in the surrounding area, leaving several hundred people homeless and shutting down offices in downtown Oklahoma City. Over 12,000 people participated in relief and rescue operations in the days following the blast, many of whom developed post - traumatic stress disorder as a result. Although all area hospitals received victims of the blast, the majority were taken to St. Anthony Hospital, closest to the blast area. The national and worldwide humanitarian response was immediate and overwhelming, as was the media response. The area was flooded with rescue workers from around the nation and aid agencies coming to assist the survivors, as well as hundreds of news trucks coming to cover the story. Many immediate news stories hypothesized that the attack had been undertaken by Middle Eastern terrorists.

The national focus climaxed on April 23, when President Bill Clinton spoke in Oklahoma City. In the weeks following the bombing, rescue efforts ceased, the building was imploded, and media interest shifted to the trials of Timothy McVeigh and one of his accomplices, Terry Nichols.