Letter bombs are usually designed to explode immediately on opening, with the intention of seriously injuring or killing the recipient (who may or may not be the person to whom the bomb was addressed). A related threat is mail containing unidentified powders or chemicals, as in the 2001 anthrax attacks.
One of, if not the first, groups to consistently use letter bombs on a wide scale were the British suffragettes of the Women's Social and Political Union in the years before the First World War. The group were the original inventors of a form of letter bomb designed to maim or kill politicians or opponents. In 1913, numerous letter bombs were sent to politicians such as the Chancellor David Lloyd George and Prime Minister H.H. Asquith, but they invariably all exploded in post offices, post boxes or in mailbags while in transit across the country. Suffragettes also once attempted to assassinate a judge they considered to be anti-women's suffrage, Sir Henry Curtis-Bennett, with a "deadly" letter-bomb made partly out of bullets, but the bomb was intercepted by London postal workers before it could reach him.
Alternative names include parcel bomb, mail bomb, package bomb, note bomb, message bomb, gift bomb, present bomb, delivery bomb, surprise bomb, postal bomb, and post bomb.
*(USPIS) In the United States, the Postal Inspection Service is responsible for investigating the use, or threat of use, of letter bombs, harmful chemicals and dangerous devices sent through the postal system. /wiki/United_States_Postal_Inspection_Service
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