by the United States at Bikini Atoll in mid-1946 to investigate the
effect of such weapons on naval ships. They were the first nuclear
detonations after World War II, and the first ever to be publicly
announced beforehand and observed by an invited audience, including a
large press corps. A fleet of 95 target ships was assembled in Bikini
Lagoon and hit with two detonations of Fat Man plutonium implosion-type
nuclear weapons of the type dropped on Nagasaki, each with a yield of
23 kt (96 TJ). The first test, Able, was an air burst that sank five
ships and demonstrated the survivability of ships located more than 1
kilometer (0.62 mi) from the explosion. The second test, Baker, was an
underwater explosion (pictured), which effectively destroyed the entire
target fleet with radioactive contamination. It was the first case of
immediate, concentrated radioactive fallout from a nuclear explosion.
The fallout from Baker and subsequent Bikini tests still renders the
area uninhabitable. Glenn Seaborg, the longest-serving chairman of the
U.S. Atomic Energy Commission, called Baker "the world's first nuclear
disaster." (Full article...).
Read more: <https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Operation_Crossroads>
_______________________________
Today's selected anniversaries:
771:
Austrasian King Carloman I died, leaving his brother Charlemagne
King of the now complete Frankish Kingdom.
<https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Carloman_I>
1639:
English astronomer Jeremiah Horrocks made the first observation
of a transit of Venus.
<https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Transit_of_Venus>
1829:
Sati, the Hindu funeral custom of widows immolating themselves,
was prohibited in part of British India after years of campaigning by
Ram Mohan Roy (pictured).
<https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sati_(practice)>
1909:
The first Grey Cup game, the championship game of the Canadian
Football League, was held.
<https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Grey_Cup>
1980:
The English rock group Led Zeppelin officially disbanded.
<https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Led_Zeppelin>
2006:
Six black youths in Jena, Louisiana, US, assaulted a white
teenager; the subsequent court case would become a cause célèbre.
<https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jena_Six>
_____________________________
Wiktionary's word of the day:
intersperse:
1. To mix two things irregularly, placing things of one kind among things
of other; specifically:
2. To scatter or insert (something) into or among (other things), as Nature
interspersed dandelions among the petunias, or
3. To diversify (something) by placing or inserting other things among
(it), as Nature interspersed the petunias with dandelions.
<https://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/intersperse>
___________________________
Wikiquote quote of the day:
Words, words, words, are the stumbling-blocks in the way of
truth. Until you think of things as they are, and not of the words that
misrepresent them, you cannot think rightly. Words produce the
appearance of hard and fast lines where there are none. Words divide;
thus we call this a man, that an ape, that a monkey, while they are all
only differentiations of the same thing. To think of a thing they must
be got rid of: they are the clothes that thoughts wear — only the
clothes. I say this over and over again, for there is nothing of more
importance. Other men's words will stop you at the beginning of an
investigation. A man may play with words all his life, arranging them
and rearranging them like dominoes. If I could think to you without
words you would understand me better.
--Samuel Butler
<https://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/Samuel_Butler_(novelist)>
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