The Aral Sea is actually situated in Central Asia, between Northern Uzbekistan and Southern Kazakhstan. Once the fourth largest freshwater lake in the world, the vanishing Aral Sea is nearly empty now, thanks to a decades-old, Soviet-begun desert irrigation program.
Tag Archives: Soviet Union
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”
Podcast: Who Drained Russia’s Vast Aral Sea?
To answer the question, it was the Soviet Union, that’s who. The Aral Sea is actually situated in Central Asia, between Northern Uzbekistan and Southern Kazakhstan. Once the fourth largest freshwater lake in the world, the vanishing Aral Sea is now nearly empty, thanks to a flawed, decades-old, Soviet-engineered desert irrigation program. To read theContinue reading “Podcast: Who Drained Russia’s Vast Aral Sea?”
The Cold War’s forgotten Hungarian Revolution
On October 23rd 1956, thousands of Hungarian workers and students flooded the streets of Budapest. With fists raised in defiance, they shouted for “Freedom from Soviet tyranny!”
The 1989 Velvet Revolution of Czechoslovakia
During an astonishing 6-week period in 1989, between November 17th and December 29th, a non-violent Velvet Revolution took place in Communist Czechoslovakia. It overthrew the 44 year old Soviet backed regime put in place by Josef Stalin at the end of World War II, and replaced it with a free democracy. It was nicknamed theContinue reading “The 1989 Velvet Revolution of Czechoslovakia”
Podcast: The Lingering Legacy of the Chernobyl Disaster
The greatest nuclear disaster the Earth has ever known, worse than even Japan’s Fukushima, or the U.S. Three Mile Island, began innocently enough in the early morning hours of Saturday, April 26th, 1986 at the Soviet Union’s Chernobyl Nuclear Power Plant in Ukraine. A simple safety test was about to be performed that wouldContinue reading “Podcast: The Lingering Legacy of the Chernobyl Disaster”
The Cuban Missile Crisis – the Day Russia Blinked
For 13 nerve-wracking days in October 1962, the Cuban Missile Crisis brought the earth close to a nuclear WORLD WAR III. It was a direct confrontation between 2 major superpowers, United States and USSR (Soviet Union) during the so called Cold War. It was the worst clash since the construction of the Berlin WallContinue reading “The Cuban Missile Crisis – the Day Russia Blinked”
The Rise and Fall of the Germany’s Infamous Berlin Wall
By 1961, the Cold War between the US and USSR was raging unchecked around the globe.