Oklahoma City Bombing

1. The destruction of a federal office building in Oklahoma City in 1995 by a truck loaded with explosives; the blast killed 168 people. Timothy McVeigh, a former U.S. soldier, and two conspirators were convicted of the crime; McVeigh was executed.

Many Americans initially assumed that this act of terrorism was the work of Arabs in retaliation for U.S. support of Israel and were shocked to learn that the perpetrators were Americans. McVeigh and his conspirators had vague ties to the militia movement of the 1990s.

Example Sentences

Agency leaders focused considerable energy on organized crime — which Hoover had mostly ignored or tolerated — from the mid-’70s onward, and were reluctantly compelled to acknowledge the rising threat of white nationalist and anti-government terrorism after Waco, Ruby Ridge and the Oklahoma City bombing in 1994.

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The 1995 Oklahoma City bombing, an earlier but still notable example, killed 168 in the deadliest domestic terrorist attack in U.S. history.

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We could go on and on, and the reaction in the country to these acts of political violence, and I think that’s what we’re seeing now, feels very much like the reaction in the ’60s where acts of violence generated more division, rather than, say, the Oklahoma City bombing.

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I remember watching the news on that horrible afternoon when the Oklahoma City bombing took place.

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Other spikes in reports of suspicious bags or items happen in the wake of a major incident, such as the 1995 Oklahoma City bombing, when authorities were inundated by reports from the newly vigilant public.

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