I would completely have missed this if it were not for Hacker News, but: today is the 100th anniversary of the Wall Street bombing.
In 1919, a coordinated attack had bombs going off in seven cities, including Washington, DC, where an explosive was supposed to land on the porch of US Attorney General A. Mitchell Palmer. But, said Gage, “it was set to a timer and went off prematurely. The guy carrying the bomb, an Italian anarchist, got killed. Pieces of his body were found all over Palmer’s neighborhood.”
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It’s widely speculated that an Italian anarchist named Mario Buda did the deed in retaliation for the murder-robbery indictment of Nicola Sacco and Bartolomeo Vanzetti (better known as Sacco and Vanzetti). Buda, who was thought to be involved in the 1919 bombings, was never brought in for questioning and fled to Italy soon after the Wall Street attack.
There’s an interesting book by Mike Davis, Buda’s Wagon: A Brief History of the Car Bomb (affiliate link). He views the Wall Street bombing as the first car bomb, even though it wasn’t really a “car” bomb.
FBI page. There’s an “American Experience” documentary that you can apparently stream for free if you’re a PBS station member or have Amazon Prime.
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