Special Projects

Dominic Rodriguez speaks with current UW-Madison students about the bombing of Sterling Hall that occurred in 1970.

Lester Pines was between his sophomore and junior years at the University of Wisconsin- Madison in the summer of 1970, when the bombing occurred. Five years later, he was admitted to practice law in Wisconsin. Six years later, David Fine’s family hired him to represent the fugitive in the first part of the federal criminal […]

Paul Soglin, the former mayor of Madison and a prominent antiwar activist, is very familiar with the history, riots and the explosion that took place on the UW-Madison campus in the 1960’s and ’70’s. He said that the first demonstrations against the Vietnam War, in Madison, took place in mid-October of 1963. The civil rights […]

In August of 1970, Joseph McBride was 23 years old, working for the Wisconsin State Journal. He was the youngest male reporter on the staff and therefore designated as the man who would cover the violent opposition towards the Vietnam War on the University of Wisconsin- Madison campus. He was one of the local reporters […]

When Sterling Hall Bomber David Fine was sentenced, he drew a moral equivalency to the end of World War II. “And I would just like to say that all those who join me in mourning the death of Robert Fassnacht in the bombing of army math would also on this day the anniversary of the […]

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 […]