5 Horrifying Attacks on America Your History Books Left Out

The 39-hour siege sounds like the setup for a Steven Seagal movie. It was carried out by about 10 members of the Hanafi Movement, a radical splinter section of the Nation of Islam. The buildings they seized were a Jewish community center, the Islamic Center of Washington, and the District Building, which was the city government's headquarters. So they essentially seized the capital of America's capital. The Hanafi holed up in the buildings with their hostages, many of whom were wounded (including future morally impaired D.C. Mayor Marion Barry). Two people, a cop and a journalist, were killed outright. Seriously, can you not just picture Seagal in that scenario, gluing fake sidelocks to his head and rambling about Jewish Mysticism as he arm-locks a terrorist?

And then it turned into an entirely different kind of movie: the terrorists' demands were to stop all theaters from showing a film called The Message (or Mohammad, Messenger of God) which they viewed as blasphemous, handily ignoring the fact that said movie was not actually American at all. They also wanted money. Namely, $750 in cash. That's not a typo -- their leader just happened to be angry about some old court fees and wanted them refunded.

Sure, they also demanded that the government hand over a number of criminals who had killed the leader's relatives -- but two out of three of the demands from this massive terror campaign were straight out of an Austin Powers film. President Carter didn't even bother sending in whatever the late-'70s equivalent of Seal Team Six was (Charlie's Angels?). Instead, he asked for diplomatic aid from Egypt, Iran, and Pakistan, all countries better versed with the whole "Islam" thing than America. The three countries sent in their representatives and managed to talk the terrorists down, presumably by pooling their pocket change and satisfying that intimidating "ransom."

Not that they weren't cool with fighting on their home turf, too. The first major attack on the U.S. by Puerto Rican nationalists was the Jayuya uprising on Oct. 30, 1950, a bona fide revolt where armed nationalists opened fire on the National Guard and police forces. It probably doesn't need to be said that the U.S. forces weren't exactly saints in this situation. The fighting got bad enough that air strikes were called in to help quell the rebellion. Yes, the U.S. actually bombed a U.S. Territory, to the extent that a good 70 percent of the city of Jayuya was leveled.

Later in the same year, two Puerto Rican nationalists tried to assassinate President Truman. Their ballsy, if slightly thoughtless, tactic of choice was to grab some revolvers and storm Blair House, where the president was staying. Then they'd just shoot their way through security, Matrix-style. Not big on planning, these guys. The nationalists managed to reach exactly zero presidents, largely thanks to Leslie Coffelt, a White House policeman who was shot three times but refused to take a knee.

A few years later, in 1954, a team of four Puerto Rican nationalists orchestrated yet another ingenious scheme. They would:

1) Go into the House of Representatives viewing gallery
2) Pull out big-ass guns and open fire on the floor of the House of Representatives

Five congressmen were hit, but none died.

Who could've guessed that such an airtight plan -- show up with guns and shoot your problems into solutions -- could fail?

One assailant's gun jammed. Another emptied her clip into the air while screaming revolutionary slogans, which looks awesome in movies, but doesn't do much in reality, save for murder a poor, innocent ceiling. The remaining assailants did manage to wound a few politicians, but if you're keeping score, only 50 percent of this attack team actually did any attacking.

The violence died down altogether shortly after, and Puerto Rico is generally pretty cool with being a U.S. territory these days. Much like you and your parents, both parties just try their level best not to discuss the awkward rebellious phase.

The U.S.S. Liberty was essentially an unarmed intelligence ship, sitting off the coast of Egypt's Sinai Peninsula. Out of the blue, Israeli fighter jets launched an attack. The planes were followed by three torpedo boats that lived up to their namesake and torpedoed the Liberty.

No one disputes that it was the Israeli Defense Forces who attacked the Liberty. However, why they chose to do so remains a subject of considerable debate. Most likely it was a simple case of mistaken identity, like a tragic Hugh Grant film. And the ship did look a bit like an Egyptian supply ship -- though generally you'd hope a country would do more verification than "looks a bit like the enemy" before deploying three torpedo boats and attack jets.

Others claim the Israeli government was annoyed that the ship might be spying on them, or even flat-out launched the attack in order to blame it on Egypt and bring the U.S. into the war. But, then again, some folks will burn toast and blame it on a false flag operation.

In 1978, Ryan was preparing for another of his famous fact-finding trips. He had received word of a suspicious death, occurring after the deceased person had severed ties with a religious sect based in Guyana. So Ryan grabbed a TV crew, jumped in a plane, and set off to find out what the deal was with this Jim Jones guy.

Yep, you see where this is going.

Ryan gave Jonestown a look, spoke with some of the people there, and when a number of them wished to leave, did the compassionate thing and agreed to take them aboard his plane. Jones did not particularly like this plan. What's a crazy cult leader without a crazy cult? Jones had his men follow Ryan to the airstrip. They opened fire, killing Ryan, three journalists, and one evacuee. Several others were injured.

You know how it ended. Over 900 cultists died, most by suicide, at the instruction of Jones.

Of course you're familiar with Jonestown. But Ryan is hardly ever mentioned. And yet he is the only U.S. congressman ever killed in the line of duty. That's a pretty insane thing to just sort of gloss over, yet the Jonestown Massacre overshadows his death completely. Jones is a household name, while Ryan is a footnote. It's true what they say: history is written by the biggest asshole.

It all went down on a tiny island called Black Tom, which served as a shipping and railroad center in Jersey City, just across the bay from New York and the Statue of Liberty. On July 30, 1916, German agents planted a bomb in a railway car full of explosives, and things got Michael Bay in a hurry. The blast destroyed windows up to 25 miles away. Seven were killed, and hundreds were wounded. The structural integrity of the Statue of Liberty -- all the way across the bay from the explosion, remember -- was so badly damaged that its arm was closed to the public and was never reopened.

Yes, a secret German bombing in 1916 is why you can't moon God from Lady Liberty's torch.

Since it wasn't entirely clear at first what caused the explosion, and Germany didn't raise its hand when America politely asked if anybody blew up part of the country, the Black Tom explosion was thought to be a tragic accident for decades. It wasn't until 1939 that a commission established that Germany was responsible -- and by that time, a number of even better reasons to punch a German cropped up. But don't go thinking it was an unproven assumption or anything: Germany sheepishly paid for compensation back in the 1950s.

Which prompts the question: if they paid for the damages, why is the damn arm not fixed? The people need answers; their cheeks must feel the winds of freedom.

For more things that we sort of glossed over, check out 5 Forgotten Revolutions That Created The Modern World and 5 Important People Who Were Screwed Out of History Books.

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