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This is something I'm wondering about lately.
Why is it that terrorist bombings are such a 20th/21st century phenomenom?

I mean the technology has been there for hundreds of years as siege warfare shows.
Yet the only example I can think of off my head is the famous one of 5/11....and that failed.

Was it just a case of the availability of materials? Or the skills needed for explosives? Or that they didn't work if they got wet?

In my current on-off tl I'm thinking about having some carriage bombings in the 16th century. A little bit anologous to the modern day I know but...Its just so cool!
Sure- timing mechanisms would be non-existant or immensly crude but we're not talking mafia style 'carriage bombs' (start your horses and it goes) here. Just plain booms that kill some people.
If they're set off manually then you may well be able to get at least a small chance at killing someone important as they pass by (very small, but its there)

edit- oh and of course Alexander II. But the 19th century is still very recent and those were grenades not quite bombs
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