Unabomber's Death Marks End of Dark Chapter in American History

 

Ted Kaczynski, the Unabomber, was found dead in his prison cell on Wednesday at the age of 79.

Kaczynski was serving a life sentence for a series of mail bombings that killed three people and injured 23 others in the 1970s and 1980s. He was convicted in 1998 and had been incarcerated at the Federal Supermax prison in Florence, Colorado ever since.

The cause of Kaczynski's death has not been released, but prison officials said he was found unresponsive in his cell and pronounced dead at the scene.

Kaczynski was a brilliant mathematician and former University of Michigan graduate student who turned to radical environmentalism and became a self-described "Unabomber" — short for "University and Airline Bomber."

He began his bombing campaign in 1978, targeting scientists, engineers and other people he believed were responsible for the destructive impact of technology on the environment.

His manifesto, "Industrial Society and Its Future," was published in 1995 by The Washington Post and The New York Times. In it, he argued that modern technology had created a "system of domination" that was destroying the environment and human freedom.

Kaczynski's bombing campaign ended in 1995 when he was arrested at his remote cabin in Montana. He was convicted of four counts of murder and one count of attempted murder and sentenced to life in prison without the possibility of parole.

Despite his crimes, Kaczynski remained a controversial figure. Some people saw him as a martyr for the cause of environmentalism, while others saw him as a dangerous terrorist.

His death marks the end of a dark chapter in American history. But it also raises questions about the legacy of Kaczynski and the impact of his ideas.