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Half-Life Histories (2020)
Season 1 • Episode 30 • Windscale Fire - First Public Nuclear Disaster
Half-Life Histories Season 1, Episode 30: Windscale Fire - First Public Nuclear Disaster
On October 10th, 1957, a nuclear reactor fire broke out at Windscale in the UK becoming the first nuclear disaster to directly impact the public. Long before Fukushima Daiichi nuclear disaster and the Chernobyl disaster, This [HALF-LIFE HISTORY] is the true story of the Windscale nuclear fire, the attempted government cover-up and the legacy it created. Watch Half-Life Histories Season 1, Episode 30 Windscale Fire - First Public Nuclear Disaster in HD free online. Enjoy high-quality streaming of Half-Life Histories Season 1, Episode 30 and share your thoughts in the comments below!
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Episodes
30 episodesDemon Core - The True Story
In 1946, a P-239 plutonium core scheduled for detonation-by-nuclear-bomb was harmlessly melted down and reintegrated into the United States’ nuclear stockpile. That was the end of a 14-pound metallic sphere that had killed two scientists not 11 months before. This is the true story of the Demon Core.
14 min
The Elephant's Foot - Corpse of Chernobyl
By the fall of 1986, the emergency crews fighting to contain the nuclear disaster at the Chernobyl Nuclear Power Plant made it into the basement. They turned a corner into a steam corridor beneath failed reactor Number 4 and found not steam, but black lava that had oozed out of the core, eaten through meters of concrete, and settled on the floor. The largest and most famous formation in the corridor was a two-ton wrinkled mass that their radiation sensors firmly told them not to approach. With cameras pushed in from around a corner, the workers documented the dimly lit mass. This is the true story of the Elephant’s Foot.
14 min
Castle Bravo Disaster - A "Second Hiroshima"
At the time, it was the most powerful artificial explosion in human history…but it wasn’t supposed to be. On March 1st, 1954, the United States detonated the country’s first thermonuclear or fusion bomb at Bikini Atoll in the Marshall Islands, a small coral reef and 23 islands almost equidistant from Australia, Japan, and Hawaii. In the days and weeks following the blast, the United States would pay out millions of dollars in settlements, thousands of islanders would be evacuated and re-evacuated, and the Japanese public would deem the test “a second Hiroshima,” a comparison no citizen would dare make lightly.
19 min
Radioactive Autopsy - The Cecil Kelley Criticality Accident
At 6 AM on New Year’s Day, 1959, Dr. Clarence Lushbaugh began an autopsy. He was about to open up one Cecil Kelley, and remove eight pounds of his organs, muscles, tissues, and bone. He put these tissues, including Kelley’s brain, in a few hastily gathered mayonnaise jars, and took them back to his lab for analysis. This is the true story…
21 min
What if you put your head in a particle accelerator?
On 13 July 1978, Bugorski was checking a malfunctioning piece of equipment when the safety mechanisms failed. Bugorski was leaning over the equipment when he stuck his head in the path of the 76 GeV proton beam. Reportedly, he saw a flash "brighter than a thousand suns" but did not feel any pain. This is what happened next
17 min
SL-1: America's First Nuclear Disaster
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24 min
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The Fukushima Nuclear Disaster - Epidemic of Ghosts
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25 min
Goiânia Accident - South America's Nuclear Tragedy
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21 min
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15 min
Three Mile Island - What Really Happened
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36 min
The Time We Nuked Five Men to Prove a Point
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10 min
History's Worst Software Error
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21 min
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24 min
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17 min
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On August 6th, 1945, the people of Hiroshima, Japan became some of the only humans to ever witness firsthand the awesome and terrible power of an atom split for offensive purposes. Today, the city is a thriving metropolis. Why isn’t it radioactive? Why isn’t it abandoned like Chernobyl? This [HALF-LIFE HISTORY] travels to Japan to explain why.
12 min
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Fifteen seconds before 5:30 a.m. on Monday, July 16, 1945, J. Robert Oppenhemier and his team of Manhattan Project scientists ushered in the nuclear age. And thankfully, after the Trinity test, the Earth was still there. This [HALF-LIFE HISTORY] is the true story of the day we almost set the world on fire.
15 min
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19 min
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23 min
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18 min
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29 min
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On October 10th, 1957, a nuclear reactor fire broke out at Windscale in the UK becoming the first nuclear disaster to directly impact the public. Long before Fukushima Daiichi nuclear disaster and the Chernobyl disaster, This [HALF-LIFE HISTORY] is the true story of the Windscale nuclear fire, the attempted government cover-up and the legacy it created.
19 min