Fraunces Tavern Bombing

In 1975, Puerto Rican nationalists bombed Fraunces Tavern, a historic bar and restaurant in New York City. The attack was one of the bloodiest ever perpetrated by the Puerto Rican nationalist group known by the acronym FALN, which eventually claimed responsibility for more than 130 bombings during the late 1970s and 1980s.

The Fraunces Tavern bombing was an early incident in the new wave of Puerto Rican nationalist terrorism that flared up in the mid-1970s. The FALN (Fuerzas Armadas de Liberacion Nacional, in Spanish; Armed Forces of National Liberation, in English) had announced its presence in October 1974, claiming responsibility for bombings in New York City and Newark, New Jersey.

The Fraunces Tavern bomb, which was placed by an unused exit door, went off during a busy lunch hour on the afternoon of January 24, 1975. Four people died in the explosion, and ...