With support from the University of Richmond

History News Network

History News Network puts current events into historical perspective. Subscribe to our newsletter for new perspectives on the ways history continues to resonate in the present. Explore our archive of thousands of original op-eds and curated stories from around the web. Join us to learn more about the past, now.

Pair try to preserve some Cold War relics: Fallout shelter signs

The first atom bomb wiped out Andrews Air Force Base. The second burst above Dulles International Airport. It was three times as big as the Andrews nuke - 10 megatons vs. three - and its effects were felt for miles.

Shock waves toppled the Washington Monument and cracked the cast-iron dome of the U.S. Capitol. That the blasts killed only 26,800 people and injured 68,300 seems amazing, but, of course, those numbers don't include the people who would later die from the radioactive poison that was thrown skyward and then fell back to Earth.

Fallout.

The problem, civil defense chief Frank B. Ellis said later as he assessed the mock atomic attack known as "Operation Alert 1961," was that citizens didn't understand the dangers of fallout. Should the Soviets ever launch a real nuclear strike, ticking time bombs would settle on skin, be breathed into lungs, lodge in alveoli....
Read entire article at WaPo