The Centennial Olympic Park bombing was a terrorist bombing on July 27, 1996 in Atlanta, Georgia during the 1996 Summer Olympics, the first of four committed by right-wing extremist Eric Robert Rudolph. Two persons were killed, and 111 injured.

Bombing

Centennial Olympic Park was designed as the "town square" of the Olympics, and thousands of spectators had gathered for a late concert by the band Jack Mack and the Heart Attack. Sometime after midnight, Rudolph planted a green knapsack containing a shrapnel-laden pipe bomb underneath a bench near the base of a concert sound tower, then left the area. Security guard Richard Jewell discovered the bag and alerted Georgia Bureau of Investigation officers; 9 minutes later, Rudolph called 911 to deliver a warning. Jewell and other security guards began clearing the immediate area so that a bomb squad could investigate the suspicious package. At 1:20am, the bomb exploded killing one woman and injuring over one hundred others.