The Preparedness Day bombing was a bombing in San Francisco, California, United States, on July 22, 1916, of a parade organised by local supporters of the Preparedness Movement which advocated American entry into World War I. During the parade a suitcase bomb was detonated, killing 10 and wounding 40 in the worst terrorist attack in San Francisco's history.
Image: Thomas Mooney July 1916 (cropped)
Thomas Joseph Mooney was an American political activist and labor leader, who was convicted with Warren K. Billings of the San Francisco Preparedness Day Bombing of 1916. It quickly became apparent that Mooney and Billings had been convicted based on falsified evidence and perjured testimony; and the Mooney case and campaigns to free him became an international cause célèbre for two decades, with a substantial number of publications demonstrating the falsity of the conviction. These publications and the facts of the case are surveyed in Richard H. Frost, The Mooney Case. Mooney served 22 years in prison before finally being pardoned in 1939.
Mooney in 1939
Thomas Mooney protest in Manhattan in Union Square on March 9, 1918
The Alibi Clock in Vallejo is City Landmark #5. It once sat at Market Street in San Francisco, and is considered the clock in the photograph that exonerated Mooney.
