An Explosion Rocks The Capitol (1983)
This Day in Esoteric Political History
Jody Avirgan & Radiotopia
4.6 • 982 Ratings
🗓️ 7 November 2023
⏱️ 18 minutes
🧾️ Download transcript
Summary
It’s November 7th. This day in 1983, a bomb placed under a bench on the second floor of the Capitol building’s North Wing goes off, minutes after the Senate switchboard received a cryptic message claiming credit.
Jody, Niki, and Kellie discuss the little-known group that carried out the bombing, why they turned to violence in this moment — and what exactly they were protesting.
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Transcript
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| 0:00.0 | Hello and welcome to this day in esoteric political history from radiotopia. |
| 0:07.0 | My name is Jody Avregan. |
| 0:09.0 | This day, November 7th, 1983, at 7.02 PM, the Senate, |
| 0:17.0 | adjourns for the day. |
| 0:18.3 | Many representatives go to the Senate chamber for this fancy reception, |
| 0:22.2 | and then later on that night 10.58 p.m. as the night was |
| 0:26.1 | winding down. An explosion rocked the second floor of the capital's north wing. |
| 0:30.9 | A bomb had been placed under a bench in the eastern corridor |
| 0:34.2 | outside the Senate chamber. The bomb blew the door off the Speaker's office, |
| 0:38.0 | damaged a number of artifacts and paintings, and no surprise, served as a wake-up call for many other representatives. |
| 0:45.6 | And who was responsible for this? |
| 0:47.7 | Well, just minutes before the bomb went off, a tape-recorded message had been telephoned |
| 0:52.1 | to the Washington Post news desk and to the |
| 0:54.3 | capital switchboard claiming responsibility. It was from a group that no one had kind of ever really |
| 0:59.7 | heard of and has largely been forgotten, but not this show let's remember this moment let's talk about the |
| 1:05.8 | 1983 Senate bombing who is responsible and yes why exactly were they bombing the capital |
| 1:12.1 | building at all? |
| 1:13.1 | Here to discuss, as always, |
| 1:15.1 | Nicole Hammer of Vanderbilt and Kelly Carter Jackson of Wellesley. |
| 1:18.0 | Hello there. |
| 1:18.9 | Hello, Jody. |
| 1:20.1 | Hey there. |
... |
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