On this day, Sept. 21, in 1976, a car bomb exploded on Massachusetts Avenue in Northwest Washington, killing political figure Orlando Letelier and his assistant.
The bombing on Massachusetts Avenue is one the most infamous acts of international terrorism in the nation's capital.
Letelier was the leading voice of the resistance against Chilean dictator Augusto Pinochet.
Letelier, his assistant, Ronni Moffitt, and her husband, Michael, were driving to work on Sheridan Circle in Embassy Row when an explosion erupted under the car. Letelier and Ronni Moffitt died.
Several people were convicted in the assassination, including a Chilean secret police agent who had once worked for the CIA.
Today, a small memorial to Letelier and Moffitt sits across from the site of the bombing on Sheridan Circle.
- Scott McCabe
