5-13-18
‘This Is Not a Drill’: The Growing Threat of Nuclear Annihilation
Breaking Newstags: Cold War, nuclear weapons, Putin, nuclear war, Trump
If you were in elementary school in the early 1950s, chances are that you had the fear of nuclear holocaust drummed into you with fair regularity. Children were taught “duck and cover” techniques, which typically meant hiding under their desks as if that would save them from an atomic bomb landing nearby.
In big cities like New York, many pupils received military-style dog tagsbearing their names and addresses — to help parents identify their bodies, they were told. (Of course, Mom and Pop had to survive themselves.) Some recall that the tags also listed the family religion. That, a teacher explained to one class of second-graders, was to guarantee their burial in an appropriate cemetery. Somehow, this was supposed to reassure them.
Those days are long gone. Or are they?
comments powered by Disqus
News
- Lawrence Otis Graham, 59, Dies; Explored Race and Class in Black America
- How Negro History Week Became Black History Month and Why It Matters Now
- A Harvard Professor Called Wartime Sex Slaves ‘Prostitutes.’ One Pushed Back
- African-American Sacrifice in the Killing Fields of France
- The Future of the Middle Class Depends on Student Loan Forgiveness
- A Chapter In U.S. History Often Ignored: The Flight Of Runaway Slaves To Mexico
- For Many, an Afro isn’t Just a Hairstyle
- With Free Medical Clinics and Patient Advocacy, the Black Panthers Created a Legacy in Community Health That Still Exists Amid COVID-19
- With a Touch of Wisdom: Human Rights, Memory, and Forgetting
- New Exhibit Reckons With Glendale's Racist Past as ‘Sundown Town'