Video: 'Almanac: Weather Underground's accidental bombing'

(Friday, March 6, 1970, shortly before noon EST; part of the Opposition to U.S. involvement in Vietnam) — Three members of the Weathermen, an American leftist paramilitary group, were killed today in New York City when a pipe bomb they had constructed exploded prematurely.

The group had settled in a four-story townhouse at 18 West 11th Street in Greenwich Village and was constructing explosives in the basement.

Shortly before noon, dynamite in one of the bombs exploded and triggered secondary gas line blasts.

Diana Oughton, 28, and Terry Robbins, 22, who were working on a bomb, were killed instantly, along with Ted Gold, 22, who had walked in to the home moments before the explosion.

Video: '1970 THROWBACK: "DEATH OF DIANA OUGHTON"'

Cathlyn Platt Wilkerson, whose father owned the townhouse and was out of town, escaped along with another accomplice, Kathy Boudin.

Actor Dustin Hoffman and his wife Anne Byrne were living in the townhouse next door at the time of the explosion. He can seen in footage from the scene.

Another member of Weather Underground, Mark Rudd, would write later that the group had planned to place the bomb at a dance hall at Fort Dix, New Jersey, where U.S. servicemen and their dates would have attended a dance in order to “bring the war home” from Vietnam.

Wilkerson would surrender to the police in 1980, and would spend 11 months in prison.

Boudin would be arrested in 1981 after driving the getaway vehicle in an armored car robbery, remaining incarcerated until 2003.