America’s Most Notorious Domestic Terrorists: The Life and Crimes of the Unabomber and Timothy McVeigh

*Includes pictures *Includes the terrorists' quotes *Includes a bibliography for further reading Most Americans old enough to follow the news during the 1990s are instantly familiar with the Unabomber, a name given to the man behind a series of bombs that were periodically mailed or delivered to university professors and airlines, which led to the FBI giving the investigation the codename “UNABOM,” an acronym for “University and Airline Bomber.” Over nearly 20 years, the Unabomber, as he was dubbed by the media, would kill 3 and wound dozens with his homemade bombs, some of which were primitive but others of which were strong enough to destroy an airplane. While authorities struggled to find him from the first time he targeted someone with a bomb in 1978, the Unabomber ‘s choice of targets and the materials he used offered a glimpse into the kind of man he was. Profilers rightly assumed that it was a man who had received a higher education and had some sort of interest in the environment and big business. What they could not know at the time was that it was all the work of one man, Ted Kaczynski, who was the product of a Harvard education and had briefly taught at UCLA before retiring to a cabin in Montana without electricity or running water. Ultimately, it was Kaczynski who tripped himself up thanks to his insistence that a major media outlet publish his lengthy essay Industrial Society and Its Future. Now known almost universally as the Unabomber Manifesto, it was a long screed against the effects of industry and technology on nature, and the way technology has impacted the psychology and personalities of people in society. Often incorporating “FC” in his bombs and writings as shorthand for Freedom Club, Kaczynski also asserted that the dependence on technology limited people’s freedom and sapped them of their desire for personal autonomy. After the controversial siege at Waco ended in April 1993, a disillusioned young veteran named Timothy McVeigh was determined to strike back at the federal government. In 1994, McVeigh and an old Army buddy, Michael Fortier, decided they would bomb the Alfred P. Murrah Federal Building in Oklahoma City because several federal agencies had offices inside, including the ATF. With the help of Terry Nichols, McVeigh constructed a bomb out of fertilizer that weighed over two tons and placed it in a rented Ryder truck, the same company the 1993 World Trade Center bomber, Ramzi Yousef, had rented a van from. At 9:00 a.m. on April 19, 1995, the second anniversary of the end of the siege in Waco, McVeigh’s bomb exploded with a force so powerful that it registered seismic readings across much of Oklahoma and could be heard 50 miles away. The explosion killed 168 people, including young children in the building’s day-care center. McVeigh was captured shortly after the explosion, and he never displayed remorse for his actions. When he later learned about the day-care center, McVeigh called the children “collateral damage.” At the time, the bombing was the deadliest terrorist attack on American soil in history, and McVeigh was executed on June 11, 2001, three months before the bombing became the second deadliest terrorist attack on American soil in history. America’s Most Notorious Domestic Terrorists: The Life and Crimes of the Unabomber and Timothy McVeigh chronicle the stories of two of the most famous domestic terrorists of the 20th century. Along with pictures of important people, places, and events, you will learn about the Unabomber and Timothy McVeigh like never before.