WILLisms.com: Trivia Tidbit Of The Day: Part 21 -- Oklahoma City Bombing.

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Trivia Tidbit Of The Day: Part 21 -- Oklahoma City Bombing.

10 YEARS AFTER THE OKLAHOMA CITY BOMBING-

Not all trivia tidbits are so trivial. Today marks the 10th anniversary of the tragic, dastardly terrorist bombing of the Alfred P. Murrah Federal Building in Oklahoma City.

Some numbers:

-387,000 Estimated number of people in Oklahoma City who knew someone killed or injured in the bombing (more than a third of the population).
-190,000 Estimated people in Oklahoma City who attended
funerals for bombing victims (19% of the population).

-Over 300 Buildings Were Damaged or Destroyed.

168 People Killed
19 Children Killed

1 Rescuer Killed (Rebecca Anderson)

850 People Injured

30 Children Orphaned

219 Children Lost at Least One Parent

Source:

Oklahoma City National Memorial (.pdf).

Speaking from experience, visiting the Oklahoma City National Memorial is a moving experience. Having not made it to Ground Zero in NYC until after the rubble was mostly cleared from the site, but having visited the Murrah building site while mangled rubble was still piled high, the up-close images from Oklahoma City became a proxy for interpreting and personalizing the media images following September 11, 2001. Television and magazines and newspapers have a way of sanitizing and sterilizing the true impact of events like these, but visiting a well-designed memorial can be a good way to understand the magnitude of a tragedy.

That Timothy McVeigh believed his cowardly actions would ignite some sort of new American Revolution speaks volumes about just how deluded he must have been.

Previous trivia tidbits:

Part 1; Part 2; Part 3; Part 4; Part 5; Part 6; Part 7; Part 8; Part 9; Part 10; Part 11; Part 12; Part 13; Part 14; Part 15; Part 16; Part 17; Part 18; Part 19; Part 20.

Daily Trivia Tidbits cover a wide range of topics; you never know what you might find. Stay tuned to WILLisms.com for more.

Posted by Will Franklin · 19 April 2005 05:03 AM

Comments

I can't believe how fast time goes! How sad for our country to have had someone from our country do this! It's something I will never understand! How people can actually believe wrecking havoc on so many innocent unsuspecting people, would be the thing to do?...

Posted by: Zsa zsa at April 19, 2005 12:59 PM

I definetly agree that when you visit memorial sites the complete significance is understood. With experience seeing Ground Zero in NYC and the Oklahoma Bombing site I can say it has changed my perspective even more so.

Posted by: Carly at April 19, 2005 08:39 PM