Silent and unrepentant but making eye contact with each witness to his execution, Timothy McVeigh was put to death by lethal injection today for exploding the bomb that killed 168 people in Oklahoma City on April 19, 1995.
Witnesses said the man who committed the worst act of terrorism ever on American soil was cooperative with his guards as he was strapped onto a gurney and wrapped in a white sheet as three sets of chemicals were injected into his veins.
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He died at 7.14 a.m. local time (13.14 GMT), about 10 minutes after the execution began.
Although he made no final oral statement, McVeigh left behind a written one - a word for word copying of 19th Century Brtish poet William Ernest Henley's poem Invictus, a celebration of the triumph of the human spirit, that ends the lines: I am the master of my fate. I am the captain of my soul.
Mr Harley Lappin, the warden of the federal prison in Terre Haute, Indiana where McVeigh was executed, said the Gulf War veteran was calm throughout and died with his eyes open.
McVeigh looked at the 30 or so witnesses gathered behind glass walls in three rooms facing the execution chamber and made eye contact with each.
One of the journalists who witnessed the execution, Byron Pitts of CBS said: "There was no sign of suffering, no sign of discomfort, no sign of fear.McVeigh then lay on the gurney staring straight up - at a camera which was beaming his execution back to an auditorium in Oklahoma City where 232 victims or family members were watching. He seemed to stare straight at them."
In Oklahoma City, Ms Karen Jones, the widow of a bomb victim, said, "He got what he wanted. He was laying there glaring right at us".
Mr Larry Whicher whose brother was killed in the bombing, said: "It was a totally defiant stare, that if he had the chance he would do it all over again. There was no remorse - none whatsoever".
For many Americans, McVeigh's execution was final justice to avenge an attack on innocent men, women and children. Some of the victims and their families hoped it would bring closure to this painful chapter of US history.
McVeigh's lawyers, who also witnessed the execution, had said in advance his body would be cremated but the location where his ashes will be stored has not been disclosed.
Mr Robert Nigh Jr., one of his lawyers, denounced the execution as barbaric, saying: "Today we killed Tim McVeigh. There is a reasonable way to deal with crime that does not involve killing another human being".
But he added: "To the victims I say I am sorry I could not get Tim to say words of reconciliaton".
The execution was condemned in Europe, where opposition to the death penalty outweighed abhorrence at McVeigh's crime. European critics of capital punishment called it a barbaric, blood-thirsty way of making McVeigh pay for his crime.