15-Minute History5 Touko 2025

The Manhattan Project | Scientific Achievement vs Ethical Responsibility

It was still dark. The group of men felt the breeze getting warmer as the eastern horizon began to show signs of light. One of the men, tall with no expression, watched as final preparations were made to a large object in front of the group.

The others saw the anxiety in his face in a way that only those had had been around him could discern. The man walked forward, spoke with some of the technicians, and watched them haul it away. It was going to a tower, visible in the distance. Conversations around him continued, but only because it seemed like they had to. Somehow, the silence would have been louder.

Not long after, notifications came from the tower; an all clear was given. At 5:29 a.m., a flash of light that was so brilliant it could be seen from 200 miles away blossomed in the desert. The mushroom cloud rose 40,000 feet into the air, and the shock wave was felt 100 miles from ground zero. The man who all that morning had worn no expression, would later recall remembering a Hindu scripture in that moment: "Now I am become Death, the destroyer of worlds."

Another man who witnessed the test described the overwhelming impression it left: "A new thing had just been born; a new control; a new understanding of man, which man had acquired over nature." Another observer said, "The lighting effects beggared description. The whole country was lighted by a searing light with the intensity many times that of the midday sun."

Humanity had crossed a threshold.

___

Join us as we show you the Manhattan Project, the reason behind the development of nuclear weapons, and the ethical implications of such an invention.

Tämä jakso on lisätty Podme-palveluun avoimen RSS-syötteen kautta eikä se ole Podmen omaa tuotantoa. Siksi jakso saattaa sisältää mainontaa.

Jaksot(491)

More Security, Less Cost | A Discussion on the "New Look"

How did the Central Intelligence Agency both flourish and decline during the Cold War? What effects did both the Suez Crisis and Hungarian Revolution have on the wider world? And how might the world l...

22 Kesä 26min

Sketches in History | Thirteen Days in October

Welcome back to Sketches in History! This segment, just for kids, shows that history isn't just a story; it's an adventure. Join Lottie Archer as she dives into her extraordinary notebook, where sketc...

19 Kesä 12min

More Security, Less Cost | The "New Look"

Presidents have always had to balance economic costs with national security. In the 1950s, Dwight Eisenhower took what he called a "new look" at defense policy, which made fundamental changes to how t...

15 Kesä 17min

Pop Quiz | A Republic in Danger

How close has America actually come to falling apart? Not in the way politicians throw the word "crisis" around today, but in real, documented, military-was-deployed, states-were-leaving moments. In t...

12 Kesä 7min

The Witness & the Spy | A Discussion on Hiss, Chambers, and the Rosenburgs

Join us as we discuss the trial of Alger Hiss, why Whittaker Chambers became disillusioned with communism, the Rosenbergs, and the effects of the Red Scare on American society.Join us every Monday for...

8 Kesä 20min

Sketches in History | The Witness and the Secret

4 Kesä 12min

The Witness and the Spy | Hiss, Chambers, and the Rosenbergs

It is August 3, 1948, and a former Communist Party member named Whittaker Chambers walks into a House committee room in Washington, D.C., and says something that no one in the room ever expected to he...

1 Kesä 16min

Pop Quiz | Conspiracies and Grievances

Why are conspiracy theories everywhere online these days? Why is everyone mad at someone else for every problem in their lives? And what does history teach us about this kind of environment?Join us ev...

28 Touko 8min