Oklahoma City Bombing, April 19, 1995: What Happened

The Oklahoma City bombing happened at 9:02 a.m. on April 19, 1995, when a rented truck packed with explosives blew up outside the Alfred P. Murrah Federal Building. The blast killed 168 people, 19 of them children, and injured more than 680. It is still the deadliest act of homegrown terrorism in United States history.

What Happened in Oklahoma City on April 19, 1995

The Murrah building was a downtown office block filled with federal agencies and their employees. It also held the America’s Kids Day Care Center, where parents who worked in or near the building left their children each morning.

A yellow Ryder truck was parked at the curb just before 9 a.m. It carried more than 4,800 pounds of a homemade explosive built from ammonium nitrate fertilizer and fuel. When it detonated, about a third of the building collapsed, floor onto floor. Fifteen of the 19 children who died were in the day care center. The youngest victim was three months old and the oldest was 73.

The damage reached far beyond one address. More than 300 nearby buildings were damaged or destroyed, glass shattered across downtown, and dozens of parked cars burned. Estimates of the property damage start at $652 million.

The Rescue Effort and the People Who Answered

Police officers, firefighters, medical staff and passers-by began pulling people from the debris within minutes. The Federal Emergency Management Agency sent 11 urban search-and-rescue task forces from around the country, and more than 12,000 people eventually took part in rescue and relief work. The last survivor, a 15-year-old girl, was freed around 7 p.m. that evening.

Rebecca Anderson, an off-duty nurse, heard the explosion and drove downtown to help. Hours later she was struck by falling concrete, and she died of her injuries. She is counted among the 168.

On April 23, President Bill Clinton traveled to Oklahoma City for a memorial service and spoke to the families and the country. The search for victims continued into early May, and the damaged shell of the building was imploded on May 23, 1995.

How Investigators Identified the Bomber

The case broke open through careful evidence work and a routine traffic stop. About 90 minutes after the blast, Oklahoma Highway Patrol trooper Charlie Hanger pulled over a car on Interstate 35 in north-central Oklahoma because it had no rear license plate. He found a concealed handgun, arrested the driver, Timothy McVeigh, and took him to the Noble County jail in Perry.

At the bomb site, agents recovered part of the truck’s axle stamped with a vehicle identification number. That number led to a Ryder rental agency in Junction City, Kansas, where the truck had been rented under a false name. Staff there helped the FBI produce a composite sketch, released the day after the bombing. Investigators soon realized the man in the sketch was already in custody in Perry.

The bombing fell on the second anniversary of the end of the 1993 standoff near Waco, Texas. The FBI has said the bomber’s hatred of the federal government intensified after Waco. The bureau’s investigation grew to more than 28,000 interviews, some 43,000 leads and about three and a half tons of evidence. Agents tied a second man to the plot through fertilizer purchases and a receipt carrying both men’s fingerprints.

Timeline of the Bombing and Its Aftermath

Date	Event
April 19, 1995	Bomb explodes at 9:02 a.m.; the bomber is stopped on I-35 about 90 minutes later
April 20, 1995	FBI releases a sketch of the man who rented the truck
April 23, 1995	President Clinton attends a memorial service in Oklahoma City
May 23, 1995	Remains of the Murrah building are imploded
April 24, 1996	Antiterrorism and Effective Death Penalty Act becomes law
1997	Federal juries convict both men in separate trials
October 9, 1997	Oklahoma City National Memorial Act is signed
April 19, 2000	Outdoor memorial is dedicated on the fifth anniversary
June 11, 2001	The bomber is executed in Terre Haute, Indiana
2004	Second man is sentenced to life without parole after a state trial

Trials, Sentences and the First Federal Execution Since 1963

A federal jury convicted the bomber in 1997 on 11 counts, and he was sentenced to death. He dropped his appeals and was executed by lethal injection on June 11, 2001, at the federal prison in Terre Haute, Indiana. It was the first federal execution in the United States since 1963.

His accomplice, Terry Nichols, was convicted in federal court in 1997 of conspiracy and eight counts of involuntary manslaughter, and the jury did not impose a death sentence. Oklahoma prosecutors then tried him on state charges. In 2004 a state jury convicted him of 161 counts of murder but deadlocked on the death penalty, and he received life without parole. A third man, who knew of the plan in advance, was also convicted.

How the Bombing Changed Federal Security and Law

Washington moved to harden federal property within weeks. On May 20, 1995, President Clinton closed the stretch of Pennsylvania Avenue in front of the White House to vehicle traffic, and Congress passed legislation to increase protection around federal buildings.

The largest legal change came a year later. On April 24, 1996, Clinton signed the Antiterrorism and Effective Death Penalty Act, which passed with broad support from both parties. It expanded federal tools against terrorism and also limited how often prisoners, including those on death row, could challenge their convictions in federal court through habeas corpus petitions.

The Oklahoma City National Memorial Today

Congress created the Oklahoma City National Memorial in a law signed on October 9, 1997. The outdoor memorial was dedicated on April 19, 2000, and the museum followed on February 19, 2001. You can see how those anniversaries fell on the 2000 calendar and the 2001 calendar.

The Field of Empty Chairs holds 168 chairs, one for each person killed, arranged on the ground where the building stood. The Gates of Time frame the site, and the Survivor Tree, which lived through the blast, still grows beside it. The National Park Service notes that the memorial honors survivors and rescuers as well as those who died.

Every April 19, Oklahoma City marks the anniversary just after 9 a.m., and many people observe 168 seconds of silence. For context on other dates from that spring, see the full 1995 calendar, or compare this attack with the later events remembered on Patriot Day.