Ted Kaczynski was nicknamed the Unabomber because he focused his violence against American universities, PBS News Hour reports. However, one Kaczynski bomb went off aboard an American Airlines flight, causing smoke inhalation injuries. Kaczynski himself was a Harvard and University of Michigan graduate who taught math for a time at the university level before rejecting society and living off the grid. After the Unabomber manifesto was published in The Times and Post at the urging of law enforcement, Kaczynki’s brother and sister-in-law noticed a familiar tone and suspected their relative could be behind the bombings.
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After a roughly two-decade manhunt, in 1996, Kaczynski was arrested at a cabin in a remote area of Montana he built himself, according to The New York Times. He had foregone all modern amenities and was living a subsistence lifestyle. In his writings, Kaczynski blamed the isolation of modern life and the rise of technology for his actions. Kaczynski’s defense cited evidence of schizophrenia, which he rejected. The Unabomber even attempted to defend himself at the trial, The New York Times reported in 1998. In earlier writings from 1971, Kaczynski explained his actions: “I act merely from a desire for revenge,” he said (via AP News).
