In early drafts of the film script, the Oklahoma City bombing was literally referenced. By the time of the shooting script the location of the bombing referenced was changed to St. Louis.
The script for this film, written by Ehren Kruger, was discovered when it won the Nicholl Fellowship Screenwriting competition from the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences. It is only the sixth winner of the competition to actually be produced.
Early in the film, when Bridges is showing a bombing slideshow to his class, he describes a bombing incident that occurred in St. Louis, MO at the Federal Roosevelt Building carried out by (fictitious) bomber Ian Scobee. The photo in the slideshow is actually of the Khobar Towers bombing in Saudi Arabia which occurred in 1996, and Bridge's description of the St. Louis attack is more consistent with the facts of the Oklahoma City bombing in 1995, including the rented truck and destruction of the daycare center. In fact, no such St. Louis attack ever took place and there was never a Roosevelt Federal Building in St. Louis.
References made in the film to an incident that occurred at Copperhead Creek are inspired by the real life events of Ruby Ridge. Although the film has altered the events of Ruby Ridge to fit better with the story of the film.
Conspiracy theorists have pointed to key remaining questions in the Oklahoma bombing as proof that there were likely other accomplices, such as unidentified suspects who rented the van used to carry the bomb, reports of undetonated bombs in the building's remains, suspicious individuals seen in the area days before the bombing, etc. This questioning of the official explanation is similar to what Faraday was trying to tell his students in the class.