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Terry Nichols

American domestic terrorist

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General referenceInterpretive dossier study · Crown Archives visual atlas
Record originEnglish Wikipedia
Text licenseCC BY-SA 4.0
Source revisionAug 29, 2026
Entity authorityQ1354768
Source-derived summary

Terry Lynn Nichols (born April 1, 1955) is an American domestic terrorist who was convicted for conspiring with Timothy McVeigh in the Oklahoma City bombing plot.

Nichols was born in Lapeer, Michigan. He held a variety of short-term jobs, working as a farmer, grain elevator manager, real estate salesman, and ranch hand. He met Timothy McVeigh during a brief stint in the U.S. Army, which ended in 1989 when he requested a hardship discharge after less than one year of service. In 1994 and 1995, he conspired with McVeigh in the planning and preparation of the truck bombing of the Alfred P. Murrah Federal Building in Oklahoma City, Oklahoma, on April 19, 1995. The bombing killed 168 people.

In a federal trial in 1997, Nichols was convicted of conspiracy to use a weapon of mass destruction and eight counts of involuntary manslaughter for killing federal law enforcement personnel. He was sentenced to life imprisonment without the possibility of parole after the jury deadlocked on the death penalty. He was also tried in Oklahoma on state charges of murder in connection with the bombing. In 2004, he was convicted of 161 counts of first degree murder, including one count of fetal homicide, first-degree arson, and conspiracy.

Editorial summary

“Terry Nichols” enters the record as american domestic terrorist. Crown Archives preserves that source wording while asking what Terry, Nichols and American can confirm, complicate or overturn.

Editorial reviewA dependable orientation record for establishing vocabulary, names and a first evidence trail. The current lead gives the account dated anchors—1955, 1989, 1994, 1995—that can be checked directly. The linked authority record independently contributes the date 1955-04-01. Its strongest next move is a source search built around Terry, Nichols and American.
Editorial analysis

Why this record matters

“Terry Nichols” is worth following because a concise public description often conceals a longer documentary argument. Here, Terry, Nichols and American provides the most credible route into that argument.

Evidence profile

The citation trail is more important than the brevity of the summary: it shows where individual claims can be examined in context. The source revision retrieved here is dated Aug 29, 2026. The linked authority identifier is Q1354768. VIAF identifies the subject as 43891021. The Library of Congress control number is no96020127. 3 of 3 selected statements include explicit references; 0 carry qualifiers and 0 use preferred rank. The first chronological checks are 1955, 1989, 1994 and 1995.

Critical limits

The absence of detail may reflect summary conventions rather than a lack of surviving documentation. The lead is largely declarative, so disagreement and counter-evidence require a deliberate search beyond the opening account. Authority statements aid reconciliation but still require their own references, qualifiers and ranks to be checked.

How to read it

Use the entry as an orientation point, then follow its citations and revision history. Names, dates and institutional relationships should be checked against the original record.

Best used for
  • Subject orientation
  • Search vocabulary
  • Locating named sources
Verify next

The closest primary source, responsible institution and strongest cited specialist reference.

Three-step research path

  1. Establish the record: confirm the title “Terry Nichols”, its source revision and the description used here.
  2. Expand the search: follow Terry Nichols primary sources, Terry Nichols archive and Terry research across catalogues and specialist indexes.
  3. Test the account: compare the strongest cited source with the responsible institution’s current record and note any disagreement.

Questions for further research

  1. Which source most directly establishes the central claim about “Terry Nichols”?
  2. Which cited source is closest to the event, object or claim?
  3. Which institution is responsible for the underlying evidence?
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Source & attribution

This entry incorporates text from Terry Nichols” on English Wikipedia. Contributors are listed in the page history. Text is available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 License. Selected authority identifiers and statements are retrieved from Wikidata under CC0; their references and qualifiers remain part of the verification path.