FAME '10 Decades Project - 1990's

The Oklahoma City bombing was a bomb attack on  Alfred P. Murrah Federal Building in downtown Oklahoma City on April 19, 1995 by Timothy McVeigh, an American militi  movement sympathizer who detonated an explosive-filled truck parked in front of the building. McVeigh's co-conspirator, Terry Nichols, had assisted in the bomb preparation. It was the most destructive act of terrorism on American soil until the September 11, 2001 attacks. The Oklahoma blast claimed 168 lives, including 19 children under the age of 6, and injured more than 680 people. The blast destroyed or damaged 324 buildings within a sixteen-block radius, destroyed or burned 86 cars, and shattered glass in 258 nearby buildings. The bomb was estimated to have caused at least $652 million worth of damage.
 
 
McVeigh entered Oklahoma City at 8:50 a.m. CST. At 8:57 a.m. CST the Regency Towers Apartments' lobby security camera that had recorded Nichols' pickup truck three days earlier recorded the Ryder truck heading towards the Murrah Federal Building.[ At the same moment, McVeigh lit the five-minute fuse. Three minutes later, still a block away, he lit the two-minute fuse. He parked the Ryder truck in a drop-off zone situated under the building's day-care center, exited and locked the truck, and as he headed to his getaway vehicle, dropped the keys to the truck a few blocks away.
At 9:02 a.m. CST, the Ryder truck, containing in excess of 4,800 pounds (2,200 kg) of ammonium nitrate fertilizer, nitromethane, and diesel fuel mixture, detonated in front of the north side of the nine-story Alfred P. Murrah Federal Building. Hundreds of people were killed or injured. One third of the building was destroyed by the explosion, which created a 30-foot (9.1 m) wide, 8-foot (2.4 m) deep crater on NW 5th Street next to the building. The blast destroyed or damaged 324 buildings within a sixteen-block radius, and shattered glass in 258 nearby buildings. The broken glass alone accounted for 5% of the death total and 69% of the injuries outside the Murrah Federal Building. The blast destroyed or burned 86 cars around the site, causing secondary explosions from the vehicles' gas tanks and tires. The destruction of the buildings left several hundred people homeless and shut down multiple offices in downtown Oklahoma City. The explosion was estimated to have caused at least $652 million worth of damage.
The effects of the blast were equivalent to over 5,000 pounds (2,300 kg) of TNT and could be heard and felt up to 55 miles (89 km) away. Seismometers at Science Museum Oklahoma in Oklahoma City, 4.3 miles (6.9 km) away, and in Norman, Oklahoma, 16.1 miles (25.9 km) away, recorded the blast as measuring approximately 3.0 on the Richter scale.