Ted Kaczynski: Former Math Professor Who Became the Unabomber Dies at 81

Ted Kaczynski was an American domestic terrorist known as the Unabomber, who carried out a mail-bombing campaign that killed three people and injured 23 others between 1978 and 1995. Born Theodore John Kaczynski on May 22, 1942, in Chicago, he was a mathematical prodigy who entered Harvard at 16.

Kaczynski earned a bachelor's degree from Harvard in 1962 and a Ph.D. in mathematics from the University of Michigan in 1967, and became an assistant professor at the University of California, Berkeley, that same year. He resigned in 1969, moved to a remote cabin in Montana and began building bombs. His victims included Hugh Scrutton (1985), Thomas Mosser (1994) and Gilbert Brent Murray (1995).

The FBI's search for the Unabomber became the most expensive investigation in its history to that point. His brother David reported his suspicions, and Kaczynski was arrested at his cabin on April 3, 1996. He pleaded guilty in 1998 and was sentenced to multiple life terms without parole. He died on June 10, 2023, at age 81, at a federal medical center in North Carolina.

Achievements: Earned a Harvard degree at 20 (1962), earned a Ph.D. in mathematics at Michigan (1967), became a professor at Berkeley (1967), arrested (1996) and sentenced to life without parole (1998).

Birth: May 22, 1942 - Chicago, Illinois.

Profession: Mathematician and domestic terrorist.

Interesting Facts: He entered Harvard at age 16. His campaign, which began in 1978, targeted people he saw as symbols of modern technology.