Major funding for backstory is provided by an anonymous donor, the National

Dowment for the Humanities, the University of Virginia, the Joseph and Robert

Cornell Memorial Foundation, and the Arthur Vining Davis foundations.

From the Virginia Foundation for the Humanities, this is backstory.

Welcome to backstory, the show that explains the history behind the headlines.

I'm Ed Ayers, and I'm Brian Ballow.

This year marks the 25th anniversary of one of the most infamous law enforcement

confrontations in American history.

It summed up in a single word, Waco.

It began on February 28, 1993, that's when heavily armed agents from the

federal Bureau of Alcohol to Back-O-Enviro Arms tried to execute a search warrant.

Federal officials have been tipped off that the branched

divisions had been amassing an arsenal of illegal weapons.

They'd also heard that the group's leader, David Kuresh, had multiple wives,

including teenage girls.

The agents had a warrant to search the property, but when they got out of their

vehicles, there was a shootout.

For ATF agents and six branched divisions were killed.

The FBI then encircled the property for the next 51 days in an effort to get

Kuresh and the branched divisions to surrender.

Some members did come out, but Kuresh and most of his followers refused.

For those two months, Waco dominated the headlines.

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