Los Angeles Times bombing

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On October 1, 1910, union members belonging to the International Association of Bridge and Structural Iron Workers (IW) detonated explosives they placed in the Los Angeles Times Building in Los Angeles, California, starting a fire that killed 21 people and injured more than 100 others. It was termed the "crime of the century" by the Los Angeles Times newspaper, which occupied the building. Brothers John J. ("J.J.") and James Barnabas ("J.B.") McNamara were arrested in April 1911 on suspicion of perpetrating the bombing. At the time of their trial, the pair became a cause célèbre for the American labor movement. J.B. eventually admitted to setting the explosive, and was convicted and sentenced to life imprisonment. J.J. was sentenced to fifteen years in prison for bombing a local iron manufacturing plant, and later returned to the IW as an organizer. The Times bombing remains both one of the deadliest criminal acts in U.S. history and the deadliest crime to go to trial in California.

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