Beginning with the stand-offs at Ruby Ridge, Idaho and Waco, Texas, politically-inspired violence plaged America throughout the 1990s. CIA headquarters in Virginia and the World Trade Centre in New York were sites of terrorist attacks. The anti-abortion group the Army of God conducted a murderous campaign that included planting a bomb at the 1996 Olympics. The Unabomber, Ted Kaczynski, terrorised the nation with his lethal mailings. In the worst domestic terrorist attack to date, Timothy McVeigh killed 168 fellow Americans, including 19 children, when he bombed a federal office building in Oklahoma City. In a horrific attempt to copycat this tragedy, two Colorado high school students staged a massacre of their own on the anniversary of both Waco and Oklahoma City. And it was in 1998 that most Americans first learned of Osama bin Laden and his newly formed organisation, Al Qaeda.
The Nineties was broadcast on SBS ONE at Monday 29 June 2020, 05:00. This episode was initially placed on Sunday 26 November 2017.