10 Photos Taken Only Moments Before Tragedy Struck

Oklahoma City Bombing

On April 19, 1995, a massive truck bomb exploded outside the Alfred P. Murrah Federal Building in downtown Oklahoma City killing 168 people and injuring close to 700 others. A plot by white-supremacist militants, the bombing was apparently a response to the Ruby Ridge Incident of 1992 and the Waco Siege of 1993 as a form of payback against the federal government. This seemingly innocuous photo shows the truck, full of explosives, making its way to the designated drop-off point for the bomb just under 5 minutes before it exploded. This act of terrorism was the worst on American soil until September 11, 2001. Law enforcement caught the perpetrators of the attack shortly afterward; one was sentenced to the death penalty and executed, the other was sentenced to 161 consecutive counts of life in prison without the chance of parole.