On this day in 1998, Theodore Kaczynski, popularly known as the Unabomber, was sentenced to four life terms in prison.
He was, without question, incredibly intelligent: he enrolled at Harvard University at age 16 and earned his PhD at 25. While working as an assistant professor at Berkeley, his antisocial demeanor developed into a full-blown hatred of modern life and technology. He became a wanderer, eventually purchasing and living on a plot of land in Montana.
He lived in a cabin without electricity or running water, mostly reading book after book alone in the woods. In 1978, at 36 years old, he began working for his brother in a factory. It was then that he sent his first bomb. It was sent to an engineering professor at Northwestern University and injured a police officer on detonation.
Kaczynski kept up his bombing campaign for 17 years, eventually sending 16 packages, mostly to universities and airlines. His explosives killed three and wounded 23.
In a letter to the New York Times, he demanded to have his anti-technology manifesto published in a major newspaper in exchange for ending his bombing campaign. Once published, his brother recognized the handwriting of the manifesto and tipped off federal authorities. He was arrested in 1996. Kaczynski died in 2023 at age 81.
You can read more about the Unabomber on the FBI website here.
