The Conqueror – the Movie that Killed actor John Wayne

There’s one movie from his very long career, The Conqueror, that’s believed to be the cause of his death from cancer.  At the height of the Cold War in 1956, The Conqueror was filmed at St. George in southwestern Utah.  It was just over 100 miles downwind from the Nevada Test Site where 11 atomic bombs were exploded the previous year.

Operation Gunnerside: The Most Important WWII Mission you Never Heard Of

Operation Gunnerside was arguably the most important covert mission of World War II. It’s goal was daunting – to prevent Adolf Hitler from creating the atomic bomb first. Gunnerside would do so by denying the Nazi’s enough heavy water (deuterium oxide) to build a nuclear weapon. The Vemork hydroelectric plant, located in a remote valleyContinue reading “Operation Gunnerside: The Most Important WWII Mission you Never Heard Of”

Podcast: Castle Bravo – a Human-made Armageddon

On Monday March 1st, 1954, at 6:45 am, the U.S. carried out its largest nuclear detonation ever – CASTLE BRAVO – at the Bikini Atoll in the South Pacific Marshall Islands. Both military servicemen and Marshall Islanders got to experience first-hand what Armageddon would truly be like. The explosion turned out to be 2.5 timesContinue reading “Podcast: Castle Bravo – a Human-made Armageddon”