View From The Porch: Today In History: The Big Bang.

Monday, July 16, 2007

Today In History: The Big Bang.

"Happy birthday to you,
Happy birthday to you,
Happy birthday, dear nuclear inferno.
Happy birthday to you."

God, only twenty kilotons. They're so cute when they're little, and they grow up so fast...

12 comments:

Ambulance Driver said...: *Gigglesnort*; 10:54 AM, July 16, 2007
Anonymous said...: The gadget was really a pretty impressive idea, especially as the compression detonation method is oh so finicky - they even had to machine the blocks of explosives in order to get the compression wave just right.; 11:32 AM, July 16, 2007
Anonymous said...: Proof positive (if anyone needed it)that Tamara really IS a Military History Geek with a warped sense of humor.
I'm jealous that I never thought of it that way...; 1:17 PM, July 16, 2007
Anonymous said...: I was born in June of 1945 and I am convinced that most people born after that are mutants. Look what they did in the 60's when they followed us normal people to college and look at them now.

Blithering pack of mutants!

With a few exceptions like Tamara and other select gun folk.; 1:29 PM, July 16, 2007
DesertRat said...: My grandfather was on the Manhattan Project, I still have his pin and a piece of trinitite.; 1:39 PM, July 16, 2007
Anonymous said...: Nice catch, Ms. K. I've lived in Los Alamos since I was 6 months old, and I still slip on today's importance. I blame the local idiot hippies for always making such a hilarious spectacle for the August 6/9 anniversary that it sort of overshadows things. I may have to get pictures this year, I've heard rumors it's gonna be bigger than usual.; 1:56 PM, July 16, 2007
Anonymous said...: "In 1914 a war began, a million soldiers lent a hand,
Weren't many planes to give support, hand to hand was the way they fought.

Young men were called up for the cause, for king and country and the cross,
In their naivete they thought it was for glory, so they'd been taught.

In 1939 once again there came the sound of marching men,
Occupying European land, all the way to North French sands,

But, in the final year of that war, two big bangs settled the score,
Against Japan, who'd joined the fight, the rising sun didn't look so bright.

Since that day it's been stalemate, everyone's scared to obliterate,
So it seems for peace we can thank the bomb, so I say, Thank Christ for The Bomb." --Strawbs; 4:36 PM, July 16, 2007
Sigivald said...: I'm sure I've said this before, but you honestly might be the perfect woman.; 5:15 PM, July 16, 2007
Matt G said...: My mother was 62 miles away at the time, asleep in her Alamogordo bed. I always wondered if the radiation caused the birth defect that made me, but the projection of the radiation fallout (to the NE) suggests otherwise.; 6:15 PM, July 16, 2007
Cybrludite said...: DesertRat,

nice to see I'm not the only one here who's got a chunk of trinitite.; 6:40 AM, July 17, 2007
Anonymous said...: Having lived in Los Alamos then at Sandia for a long time as a kid, I regretted never taking the trip out to the Trinity site on the few occasions each year you could.; 7:38 PM, July 18, 2007
Anonymous said...: I count myself fortunate that I was able to get on a tour of the site itself when I was down there with work one time... Its pretty wild. Jumbo, sitting there, is properly named, I tell you, and the ranch house is tiny, considering the giants that stood in it. Jim; 5:32 PM, October 25, 2008