Baylee Almon

The nine-story building, built in 1977, was named for a federal judge and housed 14 federal agencies, including the DEA, ATF, Social Security Administration, and recruiting offices for the Army and Marine Corps.

McVeigh chose the Murrah building because he expected its glass front to shatter under the impact of the blast.

The chief conspirators, Timothy McVeigh and Terry Nichols, met in 1988 at Fort Benning during basic training for the U.S. Army.

McVeigh met Michael Fortier as his Army roommate.

The three shared interests in survivalism.

McVeigh and Nichols were radicalized by white supremacist and antigovernment propaganda.

Motivated by his dislike for the U.S. federal government and its handling of Ruby Ridge in 1992 and the Waco siege in 1993, McVeigh timed his attack to coincide with the second anniversary of the fire that ended the siege in Waco.

The official FBI investigation, known as "OKBOMB", involved 28,000 interviews, 3,200 kg of evidence, and nearly one billion pieces of information.

When the FBI raided McVeigh's home, it found a telephone number that led them to a farm where McVeigh had purchased supplies for the bombing.

They expressed anger at the federal government's handling of the 1992 Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) standoff with Randy Weaver at Ruby Ridge, as well as the Waco siege, a 51-day standoff in 1993 between the FBI and Branch Davidian members that began with a botched Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, and Firearms (ATF) attempt to execute a search warrant.

There was a firefight and ultimately a siege of the compound, resulting in the burning and shooting deaths of David Koresh and 75 others.

In March 1993, McVeigh visited the Waco site during the standoff, and again after the siege ended.

He later decided to bomb a federal building as a response to the raids and to protest what he believed to be US government efforts to restrict rights of private citizens, in particular those under the Second Amendment.

McVeigh believed that federal agents were acting like soldiers, thus making an attack on a federal building an attack on their command centers.

McVeigh later said that, instead of attacking a building, he had contemplated assassinating Attorney General Janet Reno; FBI sniper Lon Horiuchi, who had become infamous among extremists because of his participation in the Ruby Ridge and Waco sieges; and others.

McVeigh claimed he sometimes regretted not carrying out an assassination campaign.

He initially intended to destroy only a federal building, but he later decided that his message would be more powerful if many people were killed in the bombing.

McVeigh's criterion for attack sites was that the target should house at least two of these three federal law enforcement agencies: the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, and Firearms (ATF), the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI), and the Drug Enforcement Administration (DEA).

He regarded the presence of additional law enforcement agencies, such as the Secret Service or the U.S. Marshals Service, as a bonus.

A resident of Kingman, Arizona, McVeigh considered targets in Missouri, Arizona, Texas, and Arkansas.

He said in his authorized biography that he wanted to minimize non-governmental casualties, so he ruled out Simmons Tower, a 40-story building in Little Rock, Arkansas, because a florist's shop occupied space on the ground floor.

In December 1994, McVeigh and Fortier visited Oklahoma City to inspect what would become the target of their campaign: the Alfred P. Murrah Federal Building.

The Oklahoma City bombing was a domestic terrorist truck bombing of the Alfred P. Murrah Federal Building in Oklahoma City, Oklahoma, United States, on April 19, 1995, the second anniversary of the end to the Waco siege.

In response to the bombing, the U.S. Congress passed the Antiterrorism and Effective Death Penalty Act of 1996, which limited access to habeas corpus in the United States, among other provisions.

It also passed legislation to increase the protection around federal buildings to deter future terrorist attacks.

The bombers were tried and convicted in 1997.

On April 19, 2000, the Oklahoma City National Memorial was dedicated on the site of the Murrah Federal Building, commemorating the victims of the bombing.

Remembrance services are held every year on April 19, at the time of the explosion.

Perpetrated by two anti-government extremists and white supremacists, Timothy McVeigh and Terry Nichols, the bombing occurred at 9:02 a.m. and killed 168 people, injured 680, and destroyed more than one-third of the building, which had to be demolished.

The blast destroyed or damaged 324 other buildings and caused an estimated $652 million worth of damage.

Local, state, federal, and worldwide agencies engaged in extensive rescue efforts in the wake of the bombing.

The Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA) activated 11 of its Urban Search and Rescue Task Forces, consisting of 665 rescue workers.

Within 90 minutes of the explosion, McVeigh was stopped by Oklahoma Highway Patrolman Charlie Hanger for driving without a license plate and arrested for illegal weapons possession.

Forensic evidence quickly linked McVeigh and Nichols to the attack; Nichols was arrested, and within days, both were charged.

Michael and Lori Fortier were later identified as accomplices.

McVeigh, a veteran of the Gulf War and a sympathizer with the U.S. militia movement, had detonated a Ryder rental truck full of explosives he parked in front of the building.

Nichols had assisted with the bomb's preparation.

The bombing was the deadliest act of terrorism in U.S. history prior to the September 11 attacks in 2001, and remains the deadliest act of domestic terrorism in U.S. history.

McVeigh was executed by lethal injection on June 11, 2001, at the U.S. federal penitentiary in Terre Haute, Indiana.

Nichols was sentenced to life in prison in 2004.