Timothy James McVeigh (April 23, 1968 – June 11, 2001) was a United States Army veteran and security guard who was convicted of bombing the Alfred P. Murrah Building in Oklahoma City on April 19, 1995, the second anniversary of the Waco Siege, as revenge or to inspire revolt against what he considered a tyrannical federal government. The bombing killed 168 people (19 of whom were children), and was the deadliest act of terrorism within the United States prior to the September 11, 2001 attacks. He was convicted of 11 federal offenses, sentenced to death, and executed on June 11, 2001.

McVeigh was born into an Irish Catholic family in Lockport, New York, and raised in nearby Pendleton. His parents, Mildred Noreen "Mickey" Hill and William McVeigh, divorced when he was ten years old.

McVeigh said he was often bullied at school, and that he took refuge in a fantasy world in which he retaliated against them; he would say later that the United States Government was the ultimate bully. McVeigh was quiet, and was said to have had one girlfriend during his childhood. He would later tell journalists that he did not know how to impress girls. According to his authorized biography, "his only sustaining relief from his unsatisfied sex drive was his even stronger desire to die."