Hello and welcome to this day an esoteric political history from Radiotopia.

My name is Jody Abrogate.

This day, October 8, 2001, the FBI begins its investigation to a series of letters containing

what we would come to learn is anthrax powder that were mailed around the country.

This is a story that I wanted to do on this show for a long time, basically since we launched

it.

It is also a story that is on my list of things that should be a 10-part Netflix documentary. I don't know why it's not.

So I'm glad we're here to discuss it with me as always is Nicole Hammer of Columbia.

Hello, Nicki. Hello, hello, hello. So look letters started to appear, obviously in the wake of the terrorist attacks of 9-11, the fall of 2001, five Americans ended up being killed and 17 were sickened in a lot of those were people who

sort of handled these letters as they got sent through the Postal Service.

This counts as the worst biological attack in US history. It turns into this massive, we'll get into this, this

massive and massively complicated and convoluted investigation, but we should start with the

letters themselves, you know, who is getting them and what exactly is inside these

letters? Sure, so well one of the things that's inside the letters is anthrax.

In powder form, right? In powder form, yeah. They were sent to the New York Post and

NBC News, so to media organizations and to Senators

Dachell and Leahy in Congress.

So these were some pretty high profile people and organizations, and know they're the kind of all-caps letter

you might expect from somebody who's sending you anthrax the one to the New York

Post and NBC News, read,

This is next, take penicillin now, death to America, death to Israel,

Allah is great.

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