The Centennial Olympic Park Bombing

In the early morning hours of July 27, 1996, a powerful pipe bomb exploded in Centennial Olympic Park in Atlanta, Georgia, during a free outdoor concert as part of the Summer Olympic Games. Two people died — one from the blast and one from a heart attack while fleeing — and 111 others were injured. The bombing was intended to force the cancellation of the Games and represented one of the deadliest domestic terror attacks on American soil since the Oklahoma City bombing a year earlier. In the immediate aftermath, security guard Richard Jewell, who had discovered the suspicious backpack and begun clearing bystanders, was wrongly accused by the media and became the subject of intense FBI scrutiny. He endured months of public vilification before being cleared of all suspicion. The real bomber, Eric Robert Rudolph, was a domestic terrorist motivated by opposition to abortion and what he perceived as global socialism promoted through the Olympics. He went on to bomb abortion clinics and a lesbian bar in subsequent attacks. Rudolph evaded capture for five years by hiding in the Appalachian wilderness of western North Carolina, surviving on acorns, salamanders, and food stolen from local homes. He became one of the FBI's Ten Most Wanted fugitives. In 2003, a rookie police officer in Murphy, North Carolina spotted a man rummaging through trash behind a grocery store — it was Rudolph. He was arrested without incident. Rudolph pleaded guilty in 2005 to all four bombings in exchange for avoiding the death penalty and was sentenced to four consecutive life terms without parole. Richard Jewell received apologies from the FBI and settled lawsuits against several media organizations. He died in 2007. His story was dramatized in Clint Eastwood's 2019 film "Richard Jewell."