we think of wilson as a very serious man, of course, you know he struggled for peace after world war i and try to establish the league of nations and to bring harmony and peace to the world. and yet he loved limericks! if you could imagine that! and he would recite them constantly. he had so many limericks in fact the people thought he wrote the limericks. we are not sure, he may have written some of them, in fact. it is very difficult to trace the authors of limericks because there are so many of them and there are so many words. so this is an avenue for him to let off steam, so to speak. to let loose a little bit from his trials and tribulations as a politician and as a person in

government. so there are many different approaches. jimmy carter, for example, wrote a wonderful book of poetry, called "always a reckoning." it reflects the man. the good man that he is and the life that he has led, and his insights into the world around him and into the life of the south, for example, where he came from. and some of the contradictions of life in the south. he captures those things in poetry and he talks about his politics, too, in poetry. so yes, in all of those things, presidents wrote poetry also did that. ok.

well, thank you very much, i appreciate your attention! [applause] >> i wanted to point out that he has some copies of his books over here on the table if anybody would like to look at that. i thought he was going to bring a whole bunch and this was all he had left! so if you're interested in seeing the book, you may want to take a look at it tonight. thank you very much for coming, and thank you so very much. [applause] [captions copyright national cable satellite corp. 2014] [captioning performed by the national captioning institute, which is responsible for its caption content and accuracy. visit ncicap.org] >> you are watching american history tv, every weekend on

c-span3. this year, c-span is touring cities across the country, exploring history. next, our recent visit to madison, wisconsin. quick so we are in the basement of the wisconsin historical society where we house our museum collections. going to look at artifacts related to the sterling hall bombing of 1970. darling hall is the physics department on the university of wisconsin campus in madison. it housed the physics department and the mathematics research center in 1970. it was a think tank for the army and was created around 1967 to find ways to improve access to the enemy and in this case, it

was the vietnam war enemy. also to be more efficient and killed more people than they were at war. the madison campus was very much in an uproar at the time over the vietnam war in general and they tended to focus a lot of their hate -- not hate, but their uncomfortableness and anger at the army mathematics research center. they felt there were creating theons to destroy not only enemy being soldiers, vietnam war soldiers, but also civilians. i felt this was not a good approach to the war, but these are mathematicians sitting around trying to figure out how ratios, but they did not think of themselves so much as creating weaponry. itre was an attempt to bomb in 1970.

it was the largest mystic terrorism incident until oklahoma city in the united states. it is not just a local story. that were hoping to close it down, and the people going after it were part of what they called the new year's eve gang. armstrong was the leader of the new year's eve gang. he and his brother were part of the four people who decided to bomb sterling hall. very much like they did in oklahoma city. it was ammonium nitrate and they set off jet fuel to blow up the building, essentially. they took out the physics lab and the first floor and ended up killing one of the physics

students there. this was on the second floor. it was saved after the bombing by a professor. the mathematics research center moved to a new building, the 12 floor, to be safe after the bombing and did not take the sign with them. this professor kind of hid it away. when he retired five or six years ago, offered it to us as a memento of the bombing. >> the latest development that has come up with a positive make, shall we say, on the vehicle that was involved was that which was suspected earlier. that was a 67 falcon deluxe club wagon. the vehicle is described as being like a volkswagen bus built in a box shape.

>> after the bombing, this cylinder block was found in the middle of the street. the police used it as part of the evidence. this small piece was found in a flower garden next to sterling hall by someone who came to look at the damage the next day and kept it on his desk as a souvenir until about five years ago. this is a fabulous piece for us. it sort of reflects the power of the bomb in the way it is bent and shaped from the bomb. we find it is a powerful piece for people to look at. they escaped. they heard on the radio early on someone had been killed. they decided to escape to new york city. in new york city, the two brothers, karl and dwight, split up from leo and david. they all went to canada, but in

two groups. karl armstrong was the first captured in canada, in toronto, in february of 1972. so he was on the run for about 18 months before he was captured. he was extradited. it took a year to extradite him because he thought it the whole way, before he came to trial in madison in the fall of 1973. a lot of people felt his action of trying to blow up the army mathematics research center was a good idea and justified and the loss of robert was terrible but the statement he was making was important, so karl armstrong freedom party, freedom committee also established themselves. there were a lot of protests around the madison state capital with people wearing this t-shirt

and this one as well, who felt karl should not go to jail. so there is a lot of feeling about karl going free. this last piece is a banner that was used in parades. it says to jail the army mathematics research center. we know it was used by a member of the karl armstrong freedom committee. he remembers taking this around to several parades in the fall of 1973 to protest karl's trial. karl is probably still kind of a character. at the trial, he decided to sit with his back to the judge. still, he was convicted. he got 23 years. he served seven of it. the other two, dwight armstrong and david fine were both captured in canada in 1976.

they came back and were jailed for about five years. leo burke is still at large. >> we view this as an act of a person with a depraved mind. we are not looking at the war. we are looking at the tragic death of a brilliant young researcher and the effect on his family. a night watchman is still partially paralyzed. a lot of other injuries were inflicted. the loss of the research. that is what has to be looked at. >> the death of robert was significant. the antiwar movement was fighting death in vietnam, so having a death in the antiwar movement was significant. they backed off. it took the wind out of their sails. it also gave a chance for those who did not like the antiwar

protests to say you guys are no better than the people you are fighting. you are killing someone, too. it dampened the antiwar movement and kind of brought it to an end. it definitely brought an end to the more dramatic statements made by the antiwar movement. i hope they have healed from this.