Math prodigy enters Harvard at sixteen

Ted Kaczynski was born in Chicago in nineteen forty-two and showed exceptional mathematical ability from childhood. He entered Harvard University at just sixteen years old.

From professor to remote isolation

Kaczynski earned a doctorate in mathematics and became a professor at UC Berkeley at twenty-five. He left in nineteen sixty-nine and moved to a remote cabin near Lincoln, Montana.

Bombing campaign spans seventeen years

Between nineteen seventy-eight and nineteen ninety-five, Kaczynski carried out sixteen attacks targeting universities and airlines. Three people were killed and twenty-three injured.

The Unabomber manifesto demands publication

In nineteen ninety-five, Kaczynski sent a thirty-five thousand word manifesto titled Industrial Society and Its Future to The Washington Post and The New York Times, demanding publication.

Brother recognizes the writing

Kaczynski's sister-in-law Linda Patrik noticed similarities between the manifesto and earlier writings she had seen from him. She alerted his brother David, who contacted the FBI.

Arrested at remote cabin in Montana

On April third, nineteen ninety-six, federal agents surrounded Kaczynski's cabin near Lincoln, Montana and arrested him. They found bomb-making materials, coded diaries and forty thousand pages of notes.

Life sentence, death in prison

Kaczynski pleaded guilty and received life without parole. He remained incarcerated until his death in twenty twenty-three at age eighty-one.

Harvard experiments under Henry Murray

While at Harvard, Kaczynski participated in psychological experiments overseen by professor Henry Murray and collaborator Christiana Morgan. They developed the Thematic Apperception Test.

Stress tests designed to break down students

The experiments involved students writing about their beliefs before intense psychological sessions. They were designed to break down participants who knew little about what they faced.

Kaczynski's journals reveal desire for revenge

Director Janus Metz says Kaczynski's own journals show he wanted revenge for feeling disrespected and rejected, which the experiments may have contributed to.

Netflix film explores formative Harvard years

Netflix's Unabomber, directed by Janus Metz, focuses on Kaczynski's time at Harvard as a formative period. Jacob Tremblay plays young Kaczynski and Russell Crowe plays Henry Murray.

“We decided to explore Ted Kaczynski's time at Harvard, as it stood out as a formative and fragile period in his life.”

Film takes creative liberties with gaps

The film is grounded in documented events but takes creative liberties where historical records are incomplete. Most people were unaware Kaczynski attended Harvard or faced these experiments.