Today in History, November 7: 1983 – A bombing in the US Senate.
The Senate was expected to be in session late, but managed to finish early, around 7 PM. A few hours later a bomb which had been placed beneath a bench outside the Republican cloakroom exploded. The device blew the doors off of the office of Democrat leader Robert Byrd and nearly destroyed the painting of Senate legend Daniel Webster.
A five year investigation led to the arrest of six members of the “resistance conspiracy” for the Senate bombing, and bombings at Ft. McNair and the historic Washington Navy Yard.
Shocking, but not as unusual as one might think.
In 1971 a bomb was set off in the Senate by the “weather underground”, another radical group.
In 1915, a German Harvard University professor planted 3 sticks of dynamite in the Senate building in protest of American financiers who we assisting Great Britain in WWI. He then attempted to assassinate JP Morgan. After being arrested, he committed suicide.
Mark Loves History! 