On May 4, 1970, communications student Terry Strubbe set the microphone of his reel-to-reel tape recorder on the windowsill of his dorm room overlooking Blanket Hill and turned on the recorder before leaving to join the demonstrations rocking his Kent State University campus that beautiful spring Monday. He had no way of knowing that the thirty minute recording he would capture would eventually be the most important clue to what really happened that day. But once Strubbe heard the recording, he knew the tape needed special protection and he arranged to keep it in a climate-controlled bank vault.
The only known recording of events leading up to and including the fatal volley of 67 shots, the Strubbe tape captures a tinny bullhorn announcement commanding students to leave "for your own safety," the pop of tear gas canisters and the wracking coughs of those caught in the gas, the drone of helicopters overhead, and the protests chants and the repeated tolling of the victory bell to rally students before the fatal volley erupts.
Until recently, we thought that was the extent of what the tape revealed.