The Enron Corporations's bankruptcy was the largest in American History at that time.  Fraud and wreckless accounting were responsible for destroying the corporation and ruining the reputation of the company officers and of Enron's partners, including its accounting firm, Arthur Andersen.  This scandal resulted in Congress pasing the Sarbanes-Oxley Act of 2002, which was meant to keep this typeof fraud from recurring. This paper delves deeply into the background and events leading up to and through the bankruptcy.  It concludes with the criminal trials of officers of the Enron Corporation, including Kenneth Lay and Jeff Skilling.  The paper is based on extensive priomary sources including company records, FBI documents, other government documents, and newspaper accounts.