Special Projects

A short, two-note fanfare cheerfully rang out through the cell phone speaker while 77-year-old former bomber and anti-war protester Karl Armstrong’s phone line connected with Media Milwaukee reporters Angelika Ytuarte and Thomas Mulkerrins. Ytuarte and Mulkerrins called to interview Armstrong for their class project on the Aug. 24, 1970 bombing of Sterling Hall at the […]

In the chaotic aftermath of the bombing, the four figures hurriedly fled from the crime scene, aspiring to elude apprehension. Little did they know, but this frantic escape marked the commencement of a new narrative, one riddled with the immediate repercussions and unfolding consequences of the explosion. As they disappeared into the shadows, a web […]

Leslie Bellais, curator of Social History and university lecturer at UW-Madison, gave her take on the potential whereabouts of 75-year-old Leo Burt.   “I guess he’s dead, but it’s been 53 years,” she told Media Milwaukee. Many have wondered where “Wisconsin’s state ghost” went after disappearing 53 years ago. That ghost was Leo Burt, one […]

Havertown, Pennsylvania, is a working-class suburb of Philadelphia. Founded in 1681 by Welsh Quakers, it now boasts one of the country’s highest percentages of Irish ancestry. One of those of Irish ancestry is Leo Burt. Though his name may not be recognizable to many today, in 1970, and the years immediately following, he was the […]

“I had a class there, and I just researched the hall to go there for a lecture, and results came up for a bombing,” said Ziyad Fakhuri. For current University of Wisconsin-Madison students like Fakhuri, the 1970 bombing of Sterling Hall can come as a surprise. The neoclassical squared-off brick building would seamlessly blend into […]

When taking a retrospective look at the Sterling Hall bombing of late August 1970, it becomes essential to evaluate the morality of committing violence to end violence. Sterling Hall is a building located on the University of Wisconsin-Madison’s campus. The bomb was set off in the early morning of Aug. 24, 1970, and was intended […]

Karl Armstrong peered in the window, searching for a sign of life throughout the only lit room in Sterling Hall. Behind him sat a van packed with makeshift explosives ready to be detonated. The week of surveillance that the New Year’s gang had conducted in preparation for the attack told them that the building would […]

The summer night was quiet and peaceful on the campus of the University of Wisconsin-Madison. It was a beautiful sight in the night sky. Most people were sound asleep in their beds. The days were counting down before the start of the fall semester. The quiet was smashed by a sudden explosion on campus. Sterling […]

On Aug. 24, 1970, a physics graduate student at the University of Wisconsin in Madison, Frank Scarpace, was working late into the night, assisting colleague and friend Robert Fassnacht with a research experiment at Sterling Hall: A very precise and time-consuming attempting to reach absolute zero. “I was helping my friend Bob Fassnacht with an […]

University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee Professor Fahed Masalkh, senior teaching faculty and Arabic Language Program co-coordinator, serves as a cultural guide. Reflecting on his role, he states, “I believe in education’s power to bridge cultural gaps and promote understanding.” Following the Sterling Hall explosion at the University of Wisconsin-Madison, which claimed Robert Fassnacht’s life, our investigative report […]

Anti-war activists attending University of Wisconsin- Madison during the Vietnam War era knew that their school was making millions of dollars assisting the military in the application of research. Certainly, people were finally hearing about the war crimes happening in the Far East, and one could wonder if their Midwest university would contribute to them. […]

Meet the MSOE Men’s Hockey Team, a D3 college hockey team who are halfway through their 2023-24 season. The team had a weekend of losses, and want to come back this weekend in St. Cloud, Minnesota. In this short documentary, Kameron Jones shows us how this team works through their weak points in practice, to […]