On this day, Jan. 29, in 1998, Eric Robert Rudolph set off a bomb at an abortion clinic in Birmingham, Ala., killing one person and severely wounding another. Rudolph is best known for setting the deadly bomb at the Atlanta Olympics in 1996. But it was the Alabama bombing that led the Department of Justice to peg him for the Olympic blast. The explosion at the Alabama clinic killed an off-duty police officer and nearly blew the face off a nurse. Rudolph fled into the Appalachian mountains of North Carolina, where the FBI began a $24 million manhunt, scouring the wilderness without success for five years. Rudolph’s luck ended when a rookie patrol officer discovered him digging through a garbage can and arrested him. Rudolph confessed to four bombings that killed two and injured 120 others. He said the bombings were part of a campaign against abortion and the homosexual agenda. Rudolph received five life sentences. — Scott McCabe