Tuesday, April 15, 2025

The nuclear mistakes that nearly caused World War Three

…All told, there have been at least 22 alarmingly narrow misses since nuclear weapons were discovered. So far, we've been pushed to the brink of nuclear war by such innocuous events as a group of flying swansthe Moonminor computer problemsand unusual space weather. In 1958, a plane accidentally dropped a nuclear bomb in a family's back garden; miraculously, no one was killed, though their free-range chickens were vaporised. Mishaps have occurred as recently as 2010, when the United States Air Force temporarily lost the ability to communicate with 50 nuclear missiles, meaning there would have been no way to detect and stop an automatic launch...

https://www.bbc.com/future/article/20200807-the-nuclear-mistakes-that-could-have-ended-civilisation

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Madam Secretary (the tv series) dramatized a near-miss:



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