The U.S. government defines terrorism as “the unlawful use of force or violence against persons or property to intimidate or coerce a government, the civilian population, or any segment thereof, in furtherance of political or social objectives” (28 C.F.R. Section 0.85(l)). Dozens of events in Wisconsin history match this definition. In the following list we've stretched it a little to include actions by public officials that were technically lawful but would otherwise qualify as terror.

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Sterling Hall, Aug. 24, 1970.

The ground floor of Sterling Hall on the University of Wisconsin campus in Madison on the morning after it was bombed by anti-Vietnam War activists. View the original source document: WHI 33887

Our state’s home-grown terrorists have included Nazis, Marxists, war protesters, veterans, community leaders, anarchists, patriots, Ku Klux Klan members, abolitionists, slave-owners, businessmen, union activists, American Indians, militiamen, and white supremacists, among others. The only thing they all have in common is a greater allegiance to personal conviction than to public law. Their actions show that our own age is by no means unique: our ancestors also had to fear random acts of terror and try to balance civil liberties against public security.

Each incident is followed by a link to an eyewitness account or a trustworthy secondary source. For more information, contact our reference staff at asklibrary@wisconsinhistory.org.

Aug. 5, 2012. A white supremacist kills six people at a Sikh temple near Milwaukee.
Sources: "Gunman Kills 6 at a Sikh Temple Near Milwaukee." New York Times, Aug. 5, 2012; Piers Morgan "Ex-friend says temple shooter Wade Michael Page was a 'loner'". CNN, (August 7, 2012).

April 1, 2012. A Planned Parenthood clinic is set on fire in Grand Chute.
Source: Associated Press wire service stories: "Bomb damages Planned Parenthood clinic in Wisc." and "11-Year Sentence for Planned Parenthood Fire" 

April 6, 1996. Neo-Nazis attack African Americans and Latinos in Fond du Lac.
Sources: Terry, Don. "Alleged Wisconsin Cop-Killer Had White Supremacist Past." Southern Poverty Law Center; Polcy, Bryan. "Who is the man who shot Trooper Casper?" WITI Fox6 News, Milwaukee. 

May 1989. Vigilantes assault Ojibwe spear fishermen at boat landings across northern Wisconsin.
Sources: "Appendix V: News clips-- violence/racism against Indians" in Moving Beyond Argument: Racism & Treaty Rights. (Odanah, WI: Great Lakes Indian Fish & Wildlife Commission, Public Information Office, [1989?]). 

Jan. 1, 1975. Menominee Indians seize the Alexian Brothers Novitiate in Gresham.
Source: Martino, Sam. "Lucey earned title of peacekeeper in 1975 standoff." Capital Times, May 28, 2014.

Aug. 24, 1970. Vietnam War protesters kill a bystander in Madison bombing.
Source: "Revisiting Sterling Hall." Wisconsin Magazine of History v. 90, no. 1 (autumn 2006). 

Sept. 26, 1969. Vietnam War protesters bomb draft offices in Milwaukee and Madison.
Source: “FBI Probes Two State Blasts.” Milwaukee Sentinel, Sept. 27, 1969. 

Aug. 29, 1967. Milwaukee racists attack civil rights marchers and burn their offices.
Sources: Jones, Patrick D. Selma of the North (Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 2009), pages 181-189.

Aug. 9, 1966. KKK bombers blow up the NAACP headquarters in Milwaukee.
Source: Jones, Patrick D. Selma of the North (Harvard University Press, 2009), pages 122-123. 

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Ku Klux Klan members in Madison on Dec. 2, 1924.

The Klan flourished around Wisconsin during the 1920s and 1930s and came to life again in the mid-1960s. View the original source document: WHI 1902

Oct.-Nov. 1935. Milwaukee youths dynamite police stations and banks, killing three people.
Source: Prigge, Matthew. "Seven Nights of Terror: Milwaukee’s 'Mad Bomber' of 1935" Wisconsin Magazine of History v. 97, n. 3 (spring 2014).

July 27, 1934. Company guards kill two strikers and wound 43 others near Sheboygan.
Source: Sheboygan Press articles from July 1934 in the collection, Turning Points in Wisconsin History.

Sept. 14, 1918. Two people die when a mob attacks a pacifist family in Clark Co.
Source: “Kruegers took stand against fighting in France.” Milwaukee Journal, September 17 1918. 

March 31, 1918. Patriots torture a Northland College professor in Ashland.
Source: "Professor of Northland Tarred and Feathered." Ashland Daily Press (1 April 1918).

Nov. 21, 1917. Anarchist bombs kill 10 people in Milwaukee.
Source: Gordon, Michael A. “'To Make a Clean Sweep': Milwaukee Confronts an Anarchist Scare in 1917." Wisconsin Magazine of History v. 93, n. 2 (winter 2009-2010), pages 16-27. 

Oct. 12, 1912. Theodore Roosevelt is shot in Milwaukee.
Source: Gores, Stan. "The Attempted Assassination of Teddy Roosevelt." Wisconsin Magazine of History v. 53, n. 4 (summer, 1970), pages 269-277. 

Oct. 8, 1910. A posse opens fire on the Deitz family in Barron Co.
Source: Hass, Paul. "The Suppression of John F. Deitz." Wisconsin Magazine of History, v. 57, n. 4 (summer 1974).

June 23, 1898. Workers assault strikebreakers in Oshkosh.
Source: Hannon, Michael. "Oshkosh Woodworkers’ Strike (1898)." Univ. of Minnesota Law Library, April 2010.

Dec. 13, 1894. White officials murder Ojibwe chief Joe White in Washburn Co.
Source: "Press reports & court documents concerning the killing of Chief Joe White, 1894" in the collection, Turning Points in Wisconsin History. 

May 1, 1886. National Guard troops kill five unarmed demonstrators in Bay View.
Source: "Bay View Labor Riot of 1886." Milwaukee Free Press, July 3, 1910.

Nov. 10, 1862. 1,000 protestors attack the draft commissioner in Port Washington.
Source: "Resistance to the Draft in Wisconsin: The Ozaukee County Riot." Milwaukee Wisconsin [newspaper], Nov. 12, 1862.

Sept. 7, 1861. An innocent African American man is lynched in Milwaukee.
Source: Vollmar, William J. The Negro in a Midwest Frontier City, Milwaukee: 1835-1870. Master's thesis, Marquette University (1968), pages 65-72. 

Spring 1861. A Janesville mob drives away a slave-catcher.
Source: "They Came for the Slave." Undated newspaper clipping at the Wisconsin Historical Society.

March 11, 1854. A crowd storms the Milwaukee jail to free a former slave.
Sources: "Helped save Glover." Milwaukee Sentinel, June 10, 1900. Olin, Chauncey C. "Reminiscences of the busy life of Chauncey C. Olin" pages i-lxxv in: A Complete Record of the John Olin Family ... (Indianapolis: Baker-Randolph Co., 1893). 

Nov. 1850. White officials force the Lake Superior Ojibwe on a 450-mile death march.
Source: United States Bureau of Indian Affairs. “Photostats of documents in the records of the Bureau of Indian Affairs, made by Wisconsin Historical Society in the early 20th century (U.S. Mss BN)” in the collection, Turning Points in Wisconsin History. 

Sept. 1844. A pro-slavery mob tries to lynch an abolitionist minister in Grant Co.
Source: "An Abolitionist in Territorial Wisconsin: the Journal of Reverend Edward Mathews." Serialized in four parts in the Wisconsin Magazine of History, 1968-69. The Lancaster attack is described in v. 52, no. 3 (spring 1969), pages 251-252. 

Aug. 2, 1832. Local militia massacre hundreds of non-combatants in Vernon Co.
Source: "The Black Hawk War" in the collection, Turning Points in Wisconsin History. 

June 28, 1827. Ho-Chunk warriors kill settlers near Prairie du Chien.
Source: McKenney, Thomas L. "The Winnebago War of 1827." Collections of the State Historical Society of Wisconsin, v. 5 (1868), pages 178-204.

1825-1827. White squatters force the Ho-Chunk off tribal lands.
Sources: Joseph Street to Dr. Alexander Posey, Prairie Du Chien, Dec. 11, 1827, in Annals of Iowa, January 1921; Street, letter to Ninian Edwards, Jan. 8. 1828, and “Narrative of Spoon Decorah,” both in Wisconsin Historical Collections, v. XIII (1895). 

1770. A British company infects hundreds of Ojibwe with smallpox.
Source: Houghton, Douglass. "Vaccination of the Indians" in Henry Schoolcraft. Summary Narrative of an Exploratory Expedition to the Sources of the Mississippi River... (Philadelphia, 1855): 578-579.