Summary: The Boston Marathon bombings took place one year ago this week, leaving a stunned nation to wrestle with what the government response should be. But how did Americans in the past understand terrorism? How did they experience it in their own time? This episode of BackStory explores those questions, placing the focus on terrorism within the United States. On September 16th, 1920, a bomb exploded on Wall Street as workers took their lunch break. The explosion killed 38 people and injured hundreds. The targets? What today we’d call “the one percent”—powerful financiers who ran J.P. Morgan & Co. The Wall Street attack remained the deadliest terrorist bombing in the U.S. until Oklahoma City in 1995. But at the time, people saw it as just one more bombing in a long string of anarchist attacks. So what are the origins of domestic terrorism in the United States? And what kinds of people and movements have been identified as “terrorists”? The American History Guys and their guests explore, tracing the relationship between “terror” and the state and asking when, if ever, is terrorism justified? For more on the guests and stories featured in this episode, and for an array of resources exploring domestic terrorism in the United States, take a look at BackStory's website: http://backstoryradio.org/?p=12632
