Operation Crossroads was a series of two nuclear weapon tests conducted 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)