Operation Hurricane was the first test of a British atomic device,
detonated on 3 October 1952 in the lagoon in the Montebello Islands in
Western Australia. During the Second World War, Britain commenced a
nuclear weapons project, known as Tube Alloys, but the 1943 Quebec
Agreement merged it with the American Manhattan Project. Several key
British scientists worked on the Manhattan Project, but after the war
the Americans ended cooperation. In January 1947, a cabinet sub-
committee decided to resume efforts to build nuclear weapons. To test
the effects of a ship-smuggled atomic bomb on a port (a threat of
concern to the British at the time), the bomb was exploded inside the
hull of a frigate, HMS Plym, leaving a saucer-shaped crater on the
seabed 6 metres (20 ft) deep and 300 metres (1000 ft) across. With the
success of Operation Hurricane, Britain became the third nuclear power,
after the United States and the Soviet Union. (This article is part of
a featured topic: Nuclear weapons and the United Kingdom.).
Read more:
<https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Featured_topics/Nuclear_weapons_and_the_United_Kingdom>
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Today's selected anniversaries:
1849:
American author Edgar Allan Poe was found delirious in a gutter
in mysterious circumstances; it was the last time he was seen in public
before his death four days later.
<https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Edgar_Allan_Poe>
1951:
The First Battle of Maryang-san, widely regarded as one of the
Australian Army's greatest accomplishments during the Korean War, began.
<https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/First_Battle_of_Maryang-san>
1962:
Mercury-Atlas 8, the fifth United States crewed space mission,
was launched from Cape Canaveral Air Force Station in Florida, carrying
astronaut Wally Schirra (pictured).
<https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mercury-Atlas_8>
1981:
A hunger strike by Irish republican prisoners at HM Prison Maze
outside Belfast, Northern Ireland, ended after seven months and ten
deaths.
<https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/1981_Irish_hunger_strike>
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Wiktionary's word of the day:
build bridges:
(intransitive, idiomatic) Often followed by between or to: to establish
friendly relations or links.
<https://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/build_bridges>
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Wikiquote quote of the day:
They say I gotta learn, but nobody's here to teach me If they
can't understand it, how can they reach me I guess they can't, I guess
they won't I guess they front, that's why I know my life is out of
luck, fool. Been spendin' most their lives, livin' in the gangsta's
paradise Been spendin' most their lives, livin' in the gangsta's
paradise Keep spendin' most our lives, livin' in the gangsta's paradise
Keep spendin' most our lives, livin' in the gangsta's paradise.Tell me
why are we, so blind to see That the ones we hurt, are you and me?
--Coolio
<https://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/Coolio>
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