A former mathematics professor abandoned his career so as to live a primitive life
in a cabin in the woods and would later kill 3 people and injure 23 others. This man pursued
behind his perspectives toward the impact of technology on the environment, but his way to
defend his theory was different than the usual, he started terrorism and bombing against people whom
he believed enhancing technology. Without further ado let’s discover more about this terrorist.
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Theodore John Kaczynski was born on 22nd of may, 1942 in Chicago,Illinois to polish american
parents. As a nine month baby, Kaczynski got sick with severe hives which led him to the hospital
where he was quarantined and limited to contact anyone for ten days. For his mother Wanda,
it was hard to endure his absence and she was worried about his future life.
years later as Kaczynski was enrolled in Sherman Elementary School in Chicago he was described as
healthy by the administrators. But in 1952, three years after his brother David was born,
the whole family moved to the suburb of Evergreen Park Illinois. The parents would later state that
they moved from Chicago so as the children would enjoy a better class of friends at Evergreen Park.
While in there, Kaczynski continued school and skipped the 6th grade after he scored his IQ
at 167 which put him in the same IQ range of Stephen Hawking and Alber Einstein, he was
also described by the neighbours as a genius but lonely individual. Kaczynski felt like he didn’t
fit with older children in class because they’ve been constantly bullying him, it was difficult for
him for being smaller than his classmates. While his mother was worried about his social
development, Kaczynski excelled at Evergreen Park Community High school and was clever
in mathematics and science, he used to spend hours working on advanced problems,
so that he became associated with a group known as the "briefcase boys" because of their obsession
with mathematics and science as well as for their tendency for carrying briefcases, he also played
the trombone in the highschool band. A former classmate stated that “Kaczynski
was never really seen as a person, or as an individual personality, he was always
regarded as a walking brain, so to speak.” For his smartness, Kaczynski was placed in more
advanced mathematics class and skipped the eleventh grade, he attended the summer school
and was able to graduate at the age of 15 and was one of the school’s five National Merit finalists.
After that he applied for Harvard college on a scholarship in 1958 at the age of 16
and was accepted. A classmate later said that Kaczynski was emotionally unprepared “ they packed
him up and sent him to Harvard before he was ready, he didn’t even have a driver’s license.”
Ted studied mathematics and was part of a psychological experiment conducted by
professor Henry A. Murray, in which participants were subjected to extensive verbal abuse.
This experiment, too, is thought to have been a factor in Kaczynski's later activities.
In 1962, Kaczynski graduated from Harvard and continued his studies at the university of
Michigan where he was offered a teaching position and annual grant of $2,310 which is equivalent to
$19,524 in today’s money. Professors were impressed by his intelligence,
especially professor Peter Duren who described Kaczynski saying "He was an unusual person. He
was not like the other graduate students. He was much more focused about his work and
he had a drive to discover mathematical truth." While professors were astonished by him, Kaczynski
was experiencing an intense sexual fantasies of being a female, which led him to undergo gender
transition, but unfortunately, while he was in the waiting room of a psychiatrist, he changed
his mind, and this was the major turning point of his life as he mentioned. He would later state "I
felt disgusted about what my uncontrolled sexual cravings had almost led me to do.
And I felt humiliated, and I violently hated the psychiatrist. Just then there came a major turning
point in my life. Like a Phoenix, I burst from the ashes of my despair to a glorious new hope."
Back to university, Kaczynski earned his Phd degree in 1967 and moved to the university of
california, Berkeley where he became the youngest assistant professor of mathematics in the history
of california university at the age of 25, but unexpectedly, he resigned on june 30,
1969 with no explanation and returned back to live in his parent’s home in Lombard,
Illinois for two years before he decided to move into a remote cabin in the woods which he built
for himself outside lincoln, Montana in 1971. With very little money, Kaczynski hoped to
live self-sufficiently by teaching himself survival skills such as hunting and organic
farming. He also worked odd jobs in the area and received some financial support from his family.
While living there he dedicated himself to reading books about sociology and political philosophy.
By 1975, the genius is going to turn into a mad man literally,
he became disturbed by the industrial development in the area around his cabin,
so he began vandalizing development sites around the area. But this didn’t satisfy him ,he wanted to
prove his own anti-government and anti-technology philosophy, so that he began using mail bombs
sent via the US Postal Service over 17 years. On May the 25th, 1978 Kaczynski mailed his first
hand made bomb to a professor named Buckley Crist for unknown reasons, but the package was opened
by a security guard who suffered hand injuries after the bomb exploded. Another bomb was sent
the following year to the same university. In 1979 a bomb was placed in an airplane of
American Airlines, flying from Chicago to Washington D.C, but fortunately,
a fault mechanism prevented it from exploding and it released smoke which caused the pilots
to make an emergency landing. Kaczynski continued sending bombs,
and By 1982, his bombs were more destructive. That year, a secretary at Vanderbilt University
and a professor at the University of California at Berkeley both sustained serious injuries from
Kaczynski's explosive packages. The first fatality came in December 1985, when a computer store owner
was killed, and over the next decade, he had by then committed 14 attacks, involving 16 bombs,
killing three and injuring another 23. By then the FBI were able to link all the attacks
based on the similarities between the devices that were used in the assaults, and attributed them to
one perpetrator, so they formed the UNABOMB task force to investigate more about the attacks in
an attempt to find the attacker or the attackers. They also held many press conferences asking the
public’s help by offering $1 Million as a reward for anyone who could provide them with some
information leading to the Unabomber’s arrest. Fortunatly In 1995, Kaczynski sent his 35.000 word
essay about the Industrial Society and Its Future to media outlet, demanding newspaper to print and
publish his manifesto, stating that he would stop terrorism if they do what he asked for. so that,
for the public safety, the essay was published by The Washington Post on September 19, 1995, with
a hope that a reader could identify the writer. As it was expected, Kaczynski’s brother David read
the manifesto and recognized his linguistics and suspected him, he then went to the FBI
with his suspicions and handed them some letters he had received from Kaczynski over the years.
On April the 3, 1996, Federal Investigators arrested Kaczynski
in his cabin in Montana where they found a live bomb ready for the next destination
and other tools beside an original typewriter of The Industrial Society and Its Future.
After his arrest, Kaczynski’s lawyers tried to use insanity defense, but Kaczynski rejected that he
was mentally ill, in may1998 he was sentenced to prison for life without the possibility
of parole . He is now incarcerated in ADX Florence, a supermax prison in Colorado.
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