The British hydrogen bomb programme was the ultimately successful
British effort to develop thermonuclear weapons. The successful test of
an atomic bomb in Operation Hurricane in 1952 made Britain a nuclear
power, but hopes that the United States would be sufficiently impressed
to restore the Special Relationship were soon disappointed. In 1954,
Cabinet agreed to proceed with the development of the hydrogen bomb. The
scientists at the Atomic Weapons Establishment did not know how to build
one, but produced three designs: Orange Herald, a large boosted fission
weapon; Green Bamboo, an interim design; and Green Granite, a true
thermonuclear design. The first series of Operation Grapple tests
(newsreel featured) were hailed as a success, but Green Granite was a
failure. In November 1957, they successfully tested a thermonuclear
design. Subsequent tests demonstrated a mastery of the technology.
Together with the Sputnik crisis, this resulted in the 1958 US–UK
Mutual Defence Agreement, and the Special Relationship was restored.
Read more: <https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/British_hydrogen_bomb_programme>
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Today's selected anniversaries:
1775:
American Revolution: The Committee of Safety of Mecklenburg
County, North Carolina, adopted the Mecklenburg Resolves, which annulled
and vacated all laws originating from the authority of the King or
Parliament.
<https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mecklenburg_Resolves>
1902:
The Second Boer War came to an end with the signing of the
Treaty of Vereeniging in Pretoria, South Africa.
<https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Treaty_of_Vereeniging>
1935:
An earthquake registering 7.7 Mw struck Balochistan in the
British Raj, now part of Pakistan, killing between 30,000 and 60,000
people.
<https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/1935_Quetta_earthquake>
2005:
An article in the magazine Vanity Fair revealed that the secret
informant known as "Deep Throat", who had provided information about the
Watergate scandal, was former FBI associate director Mark Felt
(pictured).
<https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mark_Felt>
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Wiktionary's word of the day:
ether:
1. (uncountable, literary or poetic) The substance formerly supposed to
fill the upper regions of the atmosphere above the clouds, in particular
as a medium breathed by deities.
2. (by extension) The medium breathed by human beings; the air.
3. (by extension) The sky, the heavens; the void, nothingness.
4. (uncountable, physics, historical) Often as aether and more fully as
luminiferous aether: a substance once thought to fill all unoccupied
space that allowed electromagnetic waves to pass through it and interact
with matter, without exerting any resistance to matter or energy; its
existence was disproved by the 1887 Michelson–Morley experiment and the
theory of relativity propounded by Albert Einstein (1879–1955).
5. (uncountable, colloquial) The atmosphere or space as a medium for
broadcasting radio and television signals; also, a notional space
through which Internet and other digital communications take place;
cyberspace.
6. (uncountable, colloquial) A particular quality created by or
surrounding an object, person, or place; an atmosphere, an aura.
7. (uncountable, organic chemistry) Diethyl ether (C4H10O), an organic
compound with a sweet odour used in the past as an anaesthetic.
8. (countable, organic chemistry) Any of a class of organic compounds
containing an oxygen atom bonded to two hydrocarbon groups.
9. (transitive, slang) To viciously humiliate or insult.
<https://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/ether>
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Wikiquote quote of the day:
Roaming in thought over the Universe, I saw the little that is
Good steadily hastening towards immortality, And the vast that is evil
I saw hastening to merge itself and become lost and dead.
--Leaves of Grass
<https://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/Leaves_of_Grass#BY_THE_ROADSIDE>