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Speaker 1: This Day in History Class. It's a production of I

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Speaker 1: Heart Radio. Hello, Welcome to This Day in History class,

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Speaker 1: where we flipped through the book of history and bring

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Speaker 1: you a new page every day. Today is September nineteen.

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Speaker 1: The day was September nineteen, nineteen fifty seven. The first

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Speaker 1: fully contained underground detonation took place at a research center

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Speaker 1: in Nevada. The test, which was part of a series

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Speaker 1: of nuclear tests called Operation plum Bob, did not produce

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Speaker 1: any radioactive fallout. Operation plum Bob stirred up controversy once

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Speaker 1: much of it was declassified. Operation plum Bob was a

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Speaker 1: series of twenty three nuclear detonations and six safety tests

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Speaker 1: conducted by the US military between May and October of

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Speaker 1: nineteen fifty seven at the Nevada Test site. The tests

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Speaker 1: took place during the Cold War, at a time when

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Speaker 1: the US and the Soviet Union were engaged in a

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Speaker 1: nuclear arms race. The two were spending a lot of

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Speaker 1: time and money on developing bigger and better nuclear weapons

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Speaker 1: like the hydrogen bomb. The threat of nuclear war was

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Speaker 1: always present. The Nevada Test site was an important site

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Speaker 1: for atmospheric and underground nuclear testing from the nineteen fifties

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Speaker 1: to the nineteen nineties. Operation plumb Bob was one of

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Speaker 1: many series of nuclear tests conducted during this time, but

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Speaker 1: it was a particularly long and comprehensive series. It tested

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Speaker 1: nuclear weapons for potential inclusion in the defense arsenal. Most

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Speaker 1: of the shots in the series were conducted to test

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Speaker 1: design principles for nuclear warheads that would be put on

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Speaker 1: intercontinental and intermediate range missiles, but plum Bob also tested

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Speaker 1: warheads to make advances in air defense and anti submarine

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Speaker 1: weapons systems. The safety tests were designed to make sure

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Speaker 1: that there would be no nuclear reaction if its high

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Speaker 1: explosive components were accidentally detonated. In addition to this, the

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Speaker 1: operation allowed the military to test the effect of nuclear

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Speaker 1: blasts on structures and aircraft, and it allowed scientists to

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Speaker 1: study the effects of radiation on living organisms. Pigs were

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Speaker 1: subjected to experiments to test protective materials and the effects

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Speaker 1: of flying debris. The Rainier test was conducted on September

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Speaker 1: nineteen at four pm local time in an underground tunnel.

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Speaker 1: A modified W twenty five warhead was used for the test.

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Speaker 1: It's explosive yield was one point seven kilo tons. Because

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Speaker 1: it was an underground test, it was not easily observable

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Speaker 1: by outsiders and had less potential of causing a massive

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Speaker 1: amount of fallout. Seismologists around the world could detect the tests,

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Speaker 1: which was conducted to evaluate containment and detection of underground

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Speaker 1: nuclear tests. The success of Rainier incited efforts to understand

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Speaker 1: the phenomenology of contained underground explosions. Those included tunneling into

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Speaker 1: the radioactive zone, theoretical modeling, and lab measurements. More underground

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Speaker 1: tests were conducted the next year, but in late nineteen

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Speaker 1: fifty eight, the US, Britain, and the Soviet Union agreed

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Speaker 1: to a three year moratorium on nuclear testing. After that,

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Speaker 1: almost all nuclear testing in Nevada was done underground. During

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Speaker 1: the nuclear testing phase of Operation plumb Bob, a lot

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Speaker 1: of radiation was released into the air since the other

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Speaker 1: tests were not underground. Declassified documents revealed that the plum

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Speaker 1: Bob tests released about fifty eight thousand and three hundred

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Speaker 1: kilo caries of radio iodide into the atmosphere over four months.

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Speaker 1: Civilians and troops who conducted exercises near detonations were exposed

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Speaker 1: to the relatively high levels of radiation. Nuclear fallout is

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Speaker 1: a hazard to the environment and to biological life, and

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Speaker 1: it can cause illness and death. In nineteen sixty three,

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Speaker 1: the US and the Soviet Union, along with other countries,

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Speaker 1: signed the Partial Test Band Treaty, which banned nuclear weapons

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Speaker 1: tests in the atmosphere, in outer space and underwater. I'm

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Speaker 1: eaves deaf Code, and hopefully you know a little more

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Speaker 1: about history today than you did yesterday. You can follow

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Speaker 1: us on Twitter, Instagram, and Facebook at t d i

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Speaker 1: h C Podcast. We'll see you here in the same

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Speaker 1: place tomorrow. For more podcasts from I Heart Radio, visit

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