The 1968 Thule Air Base B-52 crash was an accident on January 21, 1968, involving a United States Air Force (USAF) B-52 bomber. The aircraft was carrying four B28 nuclear bombs (examples pictured) on a Cold War "Chrome Dome" alert mission over Baffin Bay when a cabin fire forced the crew to abandon the aircraft before they could carry out an emergency landing at Thule Air Base. Six crew members ejected safely, but one who did not have an ejection seat was killed while trying to bail out. The bomber crashed onto sea ice in North Star Bay, Greenland, causing the nuclear payload to rupture and disperse, which resulted in localised radioactive contamination. The United States and Denmark launched an intensive clean-up and recovery operation. USAF Strategic Air Command "Chrome Dome" operations were discontinued immediately after the incident, safety procedures were reviewed and more stable explosives were developed for use in nuclear weapons. Workers involved in the clean-up program have been campaigning for compensation for radiation- related illnesses they subsequently experienced. In March 2009, Time identified the accident as one of the world's worst nuclear disasters.
Read more: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/1968_Thule_Air_Base_B-52_crash
_______________________________ Today's selected anniversaries:
1525:
The Anabaptist Movement was born when founders Conrad Grebel, Felix Manz, and George Blaurock re-baptized each other and other followers in Zürich, Switzerland, believing that the Christian religious practice of infant baptism is invalid because a child cannot commit to a religious faith. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Anabaptist
1789:
The Power of Sympathy by William Hill Brown, widely considered to be the first American novel, was published. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Power_of_Sympathy
1972:
Tripura, part of the former independent Twipra Kingdom, became a full-fledged state in India. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tripura
1976:
The Concorde supersonic transports began scheduled commercial flights to London, Paris, Bahrain, and Rio de Janeiro. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Concorde
2011:
A protest in Tirana to protest the alleged corruption of the Albanian government, led to the killings of three demonstrators by the Republican Guard. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2011_Albanian_opposition_demonstrations
_____________________________ Wiktionary's word of the day:
palinspastic: (geology, of a map) Showing the previous location of geological features, correcting for any intervening crustal movements. https://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/palinspastic
___________________________ Wikiquote quote of the day:
We know our time on this Earth is fleeting. We know that we will each have our share of pleasure and pain, that even after we chase after some earthly goal, whether it’s wealth or power or fame or just simple comfort, we will, in some fashion, fall short of what we had hoped. We know that, no matter how good our intentions, we’ll all stumble sometimes in some way. We’ll make mistakes, we’ll experience hardships and even when we’re trying to do the right thing, we know that much of our time will be spent groping through the darkness, so often unable to discern God’s heavenly plans. There’s only one thing we can be sure of, and that is the love that we have for our children, for our families, for each other. The warmth of a small child’s embrace, that is true. --Barack Obama https://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/Barack_Obama