66 Facts About Ted Kaczynski

Ted Kaczynski was a mathematics prodigy, but abandoned his academic career in 1969 to pursue a more primitive life.

Between 1978 and 1995, Ted Kaczynski killed three people and injured 23 others in a nationwide mail bombing campaign against people he believed to be advancing modern technology and the destruction of the environment.

Ted Kaczynski authored Industrial Society and Its Future, a 35,000-word manifesto and social critique opposing industrialization, rejecting leftism, and advocating for a nature-centered form of anarchism.

In 1971, Ted Kaczynski moved to a remote cabin without electricity or running water near Lincoln, Montana, where he lived as a recluse while learning survival skills to become self-sufficient.

In 1979, Ted Kaczynski became the subject of what was, by the time of his arrest, the longest and most expensive investigation in the history of the Federal Bureau of Investigation.

In 1995, Ted Kaczynski sent a letter to The New York Times promising to "desist from terrorism" if the Times or The Washington Post published his manifesto, in which he argued that his bombings were extreme but necessary in attracting attention to the erosion of human freedom and dignity by modern technologies that require mass organization.

Ted Kaczynski pleaded guilty to all charges in 1998 and was sentenced to eight consecutive life terms in prison without the possibility of parole.

Theodore John Ted Kaczynski was born in Chicago on May 22,1942, to working-class parents Wanda Theresa and Theodore Richard Ted Kaczynski, a sausage maker.

From first to fourth grade, Kaczynski attended Sherman Elementary School in Chicago, where administrators described him as healthy and well-adjusted.

In 1952, three years after David was born, the family moved to suburban Evergreen Park, Illinois, and Ted Kaczynski transferred to Evergreen Park Central Junior High School.

Ted Kaczynski later described this as a pivotal event: previously he had socialized with his peers and was even a leader, but after skipping ahead of them he felt he did not fit in with the older children, who bullied him.

Ted Kaczynski attended Evergreen Park Community High School, where he excelled academically.

Ted Kaczynski was always regarded as a walking brain, so to speak.

Ted Kaczynski became associated with a group of like-minded boys interested in science and mathematics, known as the "briefcase boys" for their habit of carrying briefcases.

Ted Kaczynski skipped the eleventh grade, and by attending summer school, he graduated at age 15.

Ted Kaczynski was one of his school's five National Merit finalists and was encouraged to apply to Harvard University.

Ted Kaczynski earned his Bachelor of Arts degree in mathematics from Harvard in 1962, finishing with a GPA of 3.12.

In 1962, Ted Kaczynski enrolled at the University of Michigan, where he earned his master's and doctoral degrees in mathematics in 1964 and 1967, respectively.

At Michigan, Ted Kaczynski specialized in complex analysis, specifically geometric function theory.

Ted Kaczynski arranged to meet with a psychiatrist, but changed his mind in the waiting room and did not disclose his reason for making the appointment.

In late 1967, the 25-year-old Ted Kaczynski became an acting assistant professor at the University of California, Berkeley, where he taught mathematics.

Ted Kaczynski's teaching evaluations suggest he was not well-liked by his students: he seemed uncomfortable teaching, taught straight from the textbook and refused to answer questions.

Ted Kaczynski used an old bicycle to get to town, and a volunteer at the local library said he visited frequently to read classic works in their original languages.

Ted Kaczynski's cabin was described by a census taker in the 1990 census as containing a bed, two chairs, storage trunks, a gas stove, and lots of books.

Ted Kaczynski dedicated himself to reading about sociology and political philosophy, including the works of Jacques Ellul.

Ted Kaczynski's father was diagnosed with terminal lung cancer in 1990 and held a family meeting without Ted Kaczynski later that year to map out their future.

Between 1978 and 1995, Kaczynski mailed or hand-delivered a series of increasingly sophisticated bombs that cumulatively killed three people and injured 23 others.

Ted Kaczynski purposely left misleading clues in the devices and took extreme care in preparing them to avoid leaving fingerprints; fingerprints found on some of the devices did not match those found on letters attributed to Kaczynski.

Ted Kaczynski had returned to Chicago for the May 1978 bombing and stayed there for a time to work with his father and brother at a foam rubber factory.

Ted Kaczynski left false clues in most bombs, which he intentionally made hard to find to make them appear more legitimate.

Ted Kaczynski sent one bomb embedded in a copy of Sloan Wilson's novel Ice Brothers.

The FBI theorized that Ted Kaczynski's crimes involved a theme of nature, trees and wood.

Ted Kaczynski often included bits of a tree branch and bark in his bombs; his selected targets included Percy Wood and Leroy Wood.

In 1993, after a six-year break, Ted Kaczynski mailed a bomb to the home of Charles Epstein from the University of California, San Francisco.

In 1995, Ted Kaczynski mailed several letters to media outlets outlining his goals and demanding a major newspaper print his 35,000-word essay Industrial Society and Its Future verbatim.

Ted Kaczynski stated he would "desist from terrorism" if this demand was met.

Ted Kaczynski used a typewriter to write his manuscript, capitalizing entire words for emphasis, in lieu of italics.

Ted Kaczynski always referred to himself as either "we" or "FC", though there is no evidence that he worked with others.

Ted Kaczynski argues that most people spend their time engaged in useless pursuits because of technological advances; he calls these "surrogate activities", wherein people strive toward artificial goals, including scientific work, consumption of entertainment, political activism and following sports teams.

Ted Kaczynski predicts that further technological advances will lead to extensive human genetic engineering, and that human beings will be adjusted to meet the needs of social systems, rather than vice versa.

Ted Kaczynski predicts that the system will break down if it cannot achieve significant control, and that it is likely this issue will be decided within the next 40 to 100 years.

Ted Kaczynski goes on to say that a revolution will be possible only when industrial society is sufficiently unstable.

Ted Kaczynski defines leftists as "mainly socialists, collectivists, 'politically correct' types, feminists, gay and disability activists, animal rights activists and the like".

Ted Kaczynski believes that over-socialization and feelings of inferiority are primary drivers of leftism, and derides it as "one of the most widespread manifestations of the craziness of our world".

Ted Kaczynski adds that the type of movement he envisions must be anti-leftist and refrain from collaboration with leftists, as, in his view, "leftism is in the long run inconsistent with wild nature, with human freedom and with the elimination of modern technology".

Ted Kaczynski advocates practicing other types of protest and makes no mention of violence.

Ted Kaczynski searched through old family papers and found letters dating to the 1970s that Ted had sent to newspapers to protest the abuses of technology using phrasing similar to that in the manifesto.

Ted Kaczynski forwarded the essay to the San Francisco-based task force.

David Ted Kaczynski had tried to remain anonymous, but he was identified.

Ted Kaczynski had received assurances from the FBI that he would remain anonymous and that his brother would not learn who had turned him in, but his identity was leaked to CBS News in early April 1996.

Ted Kaczynski consistently uses "we" and "our" throughout Industrial Society and Its Future.

Kaczynski's lawyers, headed by Montana federal public defenders Michael Donahoe and Judy Clarke, attempted to enter an insanity defense to avoid the death penalty, but Kaczynski rejected this strategy.

Sally Johnson, the psychiatrist who examined Ted Kaczynski, concluded that he suffered from paranoid schizophrenia.

Forensic psychiatrist Park Dietz said Ted Kaczynski was not psychotic but had a schizoid or schizotypal personality disorder.

Ted Kaczynski later tried to withdraw this plea, arguing it was involuntary as he had been coerced to plead guilty by the judge.

In 2006, Burrell ordered that items from Ted Kaczynski's cabin be sold at a "reasonably advertised Internet auction".

Ted Kaczynski first served his eight life sentences without the possibility of parole at ADX Florence, a supermax prison in Florence, Colorado.

Early in his imprisonment, Ted Kaczynski befriended Ramzi Yousef and Timothy McVeigh, the perpetrators of the 1993 World Trade Center bombing and the 1995 Oklahoma City bombing, respectively.

In October 2005, Kaczynski offered to donate two rare books to the Melville J Herskovits Library of African Studies at Northwestern University's campus in Evanston, Illinois, the location of his first two attacks.

Ted Kaczynski's writings are among the most popular selections in the University of Michigan's special collections.

In 2012, Kaczynski responded to the Harvard Alumni Association's directory inquiry for the fiftieth reunion of the class of 1962; he listed his occupation as "prisoner" and his eight life sentences as "awards".

In 2011, it was reported that Kaczynski was a person of interest in the Chicago Tylenol murders.

On December 14,2021,79-year-old Ted Kaczynski was transferred from the supermax prison in Florence, Colorado, to the Federal Medical Center, Butner, North Carolina, for health reasons.

Ted Kaczynski has been portrayed in and inspired multiple artistic works in the realm of popular culture.

In turn, Ted Kaczynski was referenced by Bill Joy, co-founder of Sun Microsystems, in the 2000 Wired article "Why the Future Doesn't Need Us".

Joy stated Kaczynski "is clearly a Luddite, but simply saying this does not dismiss his argument".