The Professor Who Turned Into Domestic Terrorist

Theodore John Kaczynski was born on May 22, 1942 in Chicago. He is an American terrorist and former math professor who is also known as "The Unabomber." Between 1978 and 1995, Kaczynski sent mail bombs to people he thought were promoting the industrialization of society and the destruction of the environment.

These bombs killed three people and hurt 23 others. He wrote Industrial Society and Its Future, a 35,000-word book that is a critique of industrialization.

Ted Kaczynski's Life Before Terrorism

Kaczynski went to Sherman Elementary School in Chicago from the first to the fourth grade, when he was six to nine years old.

Three years after David was born, in 1952, the family moved to a suburb of Chicago called Evergreen Park. Ted changed schools and started going to Evergreen Park Central Junior High School. He skipped the sixth grade after tests showed that his IQ was 167. Later, Kaczynski said that this was a turning point in his life. Before, he got along with his peers and was even a leader, but after he skipped ahead of them, he felt like he didn't belong with the older kids, who bullied him.

Ted was exceptionally smart; in 1996, a former classmate said: "He was always regarded as a walking brain, so to speak."

He was so smart, he got into Harvard at the age of 15 to study advanced mathematics. He graduated at the age of 20, and went further to obtain his masters and PHD in mathematics in 1964 and 1967, from the University of Michigan.

Late in 1967, the 25-year-old Kaczynski became an acting assistant professor of mathematics at the University of California, Berkeley. Kaczynski was appointed assistant professor in September 1968.

On June 30, 1969, Kaczynski quit without giving any reason.

Life as a Terrorist

Kaczynski relocated to his parents' house in Lombard, Illinois, after leaving Berkeley. He went to a rural cabin he had built near Lincoln, Montana, two years later, in 1971, where he could live simply on little money, without electricity or running water, while doing odd jobs and receiving a sizable amount of financial assistance from his family.

Kaczynski began engaging in acts of sabotage against projects close to his cabin in 1975, including arson and planting booby traps.

After his favorite wild spot close to his cabin was destroyed, he decided to take revenge on the system instead of trying to learn wilderness skills.

Bombing Activities

Before his name was known, the FBI gave him the case number UNABOM, which stands for "University and Airline Bomber." This led the media to call him the "Unabomber." This was because he target universities and airlines.

Kaczynski sent or delivered a number of sophisticated bombs between 1978 and 1995, totaling three deaths and 23 injuries. He took great care when assembling the gadgets to prevent leaving fingerprints, and he purposefully put misleading hints in them.

In 1995, Kaczynski wrote a number of letters to journalists describing his objectives and asking them to publish his 35,000-word article, "Industrial Society and Its Future," which the FBI nicknamed the "Unabomber manifesto." He declared that if this demand was fulfilled, he would "desist from terrorism." On September 19, 1995, the Washington Post published the piece.

Arrest of The Bomber

Before the manifesto came out, the FBI held a lot of press conferences where they asked the public for help finding the Unabomber and offered a $1 million reward to anyone who could help catch him.

David Kaczynski read the manifesto and quickly recognized his brothers style of writing. He initially wanted to remain anonymous as he exposed his elder brother. After careful consideration, the FBI raided Ted's cabin.

On April 3, 1996, FBI agents went to Kaczynski's cabin and arrested him. A search turned up a hidden stash of bomb parts, 40,000 handwritten journal pages with descriptions of bomb-making experiments and Unabomber crimes, and one live bomb.

They also found what seemed to be the original typed copy of Industrial Society and Its Future.  The Unabomber is the most expensive FBI investigation ever. In a report from 2000, the United States Commission on the Advancement of Federal Law Enforcement said that the investigation cost more than $50 million.

Prosecutors wanted to put Kaczynski to death, but he avoided that by pleading guilty to all charges on January 22, 1998, and agreeing to spend the rest of his life in prison without the possibility of parole.

On June 10, 2023, at 12:23 a.m., he was discovered unresponsive in his cell. He was subsequently transported to a hospital where he was later pronounced dead.