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It's late afternoon on May 25th, 1978, at Northwestern University in Illinois.

Campus Security Guard Terry Marker ambles through the halls of the University's

Technological Institute. When he reaches the door to the mail room, he knocks and pushes inside.

A cluster of faculty and administrative staff crowds around a central table.

They fall silent as Terry enters, looking a bit worried. Buckley-Christ, an engineering professor,

walks over and thanks Terry for coming. Then he shows the security guard the reason he called.

On the table in the middle of the room is a parcel. It's about the size of a shoe box,

wrapped in brown paper and plastered with ten one dollar stamps. It's addressed to an academic

in New York, but the return label lists the sender as Professor Christ. Someone found the

package in a parking lot across town and sent it back, but the professor knows nothing about it.

He insists it's not his handwriting on the box and he doesn't even know the person in New York

it's addressed to. Somebody in the room jokes that it might be a bomb and everyone laughs as Terry

begins to peel away the brown paper wrapping. Inside is a wooden box seemingly carved by hand.

Terry sets it down on the table and cautiously reaches for the lid.

But as he opens it, a small burst of flame rubs from the box. Everyone in the mail room lurches

back as Terry gasps and pain is left hand seared black. Professor Christ shouts for somebody to

call 911. Get an ambulance and tell them that the university has been sent to bomb.

The device that exploded at Northwestern University was a crude one made from common materials

like matchsticks and rubber bands, old screws and bent nails. The police will investigate the

...