ON PREVIOUS DAYS:
- YESTERDAY:
Pop-Tarts: So Hot, They're Cool! - DAY BEFORE:
The 19th Century Drunk Driver - DAY BEFORE THAT:
Why Nobody Liked 'Joey' - DAY BEFORE BEFORE THAT:
The One Man Submarine
ON THIS DAY
New York's First Terror Attack
The Wall Street bomb, outside JP Morgan’s headquarters, killed 38 people and seriously injured 143 more on 16th September, 1920. It was the biggest terror attack in New York City until 9/11.
The blast shattered windows, overturned vehicles and sent fragments of metal and glass flying through nearby buildings. J.P. Morgan himself was safely on holiday in Scotland, but his son Junius Morgan was among those injured. Mostly, the victims were clerks, stenographers, messengers, and porters caught in the lunchtime rush.
Investigators reconstructed much of the bomb and questioned hundreds of witnesses, but crucial physical evidence was lost when the scene was cleared overnight. Suspicion quickly fell on Italian anarchists, but nobody was ever charged with the crime.
In this episode, Arion, Rebecca and Olly discover the writings of Luigi Galleani, whose newspaper Cronaca Sovversiva advocated revolutionary violence; consider how the event fed into a wider climate of repression during the First Red Scare; and reveal where New Yorkers can still see the pockmarks left by the explosion more than a century later…
Content Warning: bomb injury detail
Further Reading:
• ‘Wall Street bombing: New York’s deadliest terror attack before 9/11 happened 100 years ago. No one was ever convicted’ (CBS News, 2020): https://www.cbsnews.com/news/wall-street-bombing-new-york-terror-attack/
• ‘Wall Street Bombing 1920’ (FBI): https://www.fbi.gov/history/cases-and-criminals/wall-street-bombing-1920
• ‘New York Treasury Bombed AKA Bomb Outrage On Treasury In New York’ (British Pathé,
1920): https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FfGdXO6_X0Y
#NewYork #Crime #Shocking #20s
ON THIS DAY
New York's First Terror Attack
The Wall Street bomb, outside JP Morgan’s headquarters, killed 38 people and seriously injured 143 more on 16th September, 1920. It was the biggest terror attack in New York City until 9/11.
The blast shattered windows, overturned vehicles and sent fragments of metal and glass flying through nearby buildings. J.P. Morgan himself was safely on holiday in Scotland, but his son Junius Morgan was among those injured. Mostly, the victims were clerks, stenographers, messengers, and porters caught in the lunchtime rush.
Investigators reconstructed much of the bomb and questioned hundreds of witnesses, but crucial physical evidence was lost when the scene was cleared overnight. Suspicion quickly fell on Italian anarchists, but nobody was ever charged with the crime.
In this episode, Arion, Rebecca and Olly discover the writings of Luigi Galleani, whose newspaper Cronaca Sovversiva advocated revolutionary violence; consider how the event fed into a wider climate of repression during the First Red Scare; and reveal where New Yorkers can still see the pockmarks left by the explosion more than a century later…
Content Warning: bomb injury detail
Further Reading:
• ‘Wall Street bombing: New York’s deadliest terror attack before 9/11 happened 100 years ago. No one was ever convicted’ (CBS News, 2020): https://www.cbsnews.com/news/wall-street-bombing-new-york-terror-attack/
• ‘Wall Street Bombing 1920’ (FBI): https://www.fbi.gov/history/cases-and-criminals/wall-street-bombing-1920
• ‘New York Treasury Bombed AKA Bomb Outrage On Treasury In New York’ (British Pathé,
1920): https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FfGdXO6_X0Y
#NewYork #Crime #Shocking #20s
ON PREVIOUS DAYS:
- YESTERDAY:
Pop-Tarts: So Hot, They're Cool! - DAY BEFORE:
The 19th Century Drunk Driver - DAY BEFORE THAT:
Why Nobody Liked 'Joey' - DAY BEFORE BEFORE THAT:
The One Man Submarine
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OLLY MANN
Olly Mann made his name with another trivia-wielding podcast, Answer Me This! with Helen Zaltzman – and now presents The Modern Mann, The Week Unwrapped, and Four Thought for BBC Radio Four. He also has an A-Level in History, so Dan Snow beware.
REBECCA MESSINA
Rebecca got a passion for podcasting working at The Week magazine and a passion for trivia appearing on University Challenge in 2011, making The Retrospectors her natural home.
ARION MCNICOLL
Arion started out in satirical news in Australia, then moved to the UK to work for ostensibly serious publications including The Times, CNN, and The Week… before realising that since around 2016 the news has all been satire really.
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