Page 20 - Crimes of 20th century

19. The Unabomber, 1996

Ted Kaczynski killed three people and wounded 22 with his mailbombs, but it could have
been much worse. He managed to sneak a bomb onto American Airlines Flight 444 from
Chicago to Washington D.C. It exploded but only caused a small fire. Otherwise, a Boeing
747 passenger jet might have fallen out of the sky on Nov. 15, 1979. As it is, the mad
genius, whom investigators tagged as the University and Airline Bomber, would terrorize
the country for nearly two decades. From his cabin in the woods in Montana, the reclusive
mathematician would send out bomb after bomb, and letter after letter haranguing victims
who had survived his attacks and taunting the media. No one was able to figure out who
he was. And then, in 1995, in a blast of egotistical rage, he sent out a 35,000-word
manifesto against technology and industrialization, which the Washington Post and the
New York Times published in order to prevent the Unabomber from carrying out his threat
to blow up a plane over Los Angeles. Someone recognized his ideas in that manifesto. It
was his brother, David. And so, the brutal chess game between bomber and government
came to an end as a family drama between two brothers, very much alike and yet different
enough for one to give the other up for the public good.

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