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Events on October 1 in history

Los Angeles Times bombing
1910Oct, 1

Los Angeles Times bombing: A large bomb destroys the Los Angeles Times building in downtown Los Angeles, killing 21.

The Los Angeles Times bombing was the purposeful dynamiting of the Los Angeles Times Building in Los Angeles, California, on October 1, 1910, by a union member belonging to the International Association of Bridge and Structural Iron Workers. The explosion started a fire which killed 21 newspaper employees and injured 100 more. It was termed the "crime of the century" by the Times.

Brothers John J. ("J.J.") and James Barnabas ("J.B.") McNamara were arrested in April 1911 for the bombing. Their trial became a cause célèbre for the American labor movement. J.B. admitted to setting the explosive, and was convicted and sentenced to life in prison. J.J. was sentenced to 15 years in prison for bombing a local iron manufacturing plant, and returned to the Iron Workers union as an organizer.

The bombing shocked Americans and remains both one of the deadliest criminal acts in their history and the deadliest crime to go to trial in California.

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Events on 1910

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