On August 10, 1954, in the small upstate town of Massena, New York, political leaders, engineers, and dignitaries gathered for an event that had been more than half a century in the making: the groundbreaking of the Saint Lawrence Seaway. Beneath a bright summer…
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On June 22, 1990, one of the most famous checkpoints in the world came down, opening a new path for unity and peace in Germany and showing a new era of world history was right around the corner. A major crossing through the Berlin…
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In the uneasy interregnum between Nazi defeat and Soviet ascendance, as Europe’s cities lay in ruins and the ashes of fascist ambition still smoldered, the United States made a decision as consequential as it was morally fraught. On June 20, 1945, the Department of…
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On June 19, 1953, two of the most famous spies against the United States met their fate. Members of the communist party, Julius and Ethel Rosenberg, were convicted of passing secret information about the atomic bomb to the Soviet Union in 1945. Julius Rosenberg…
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On May 25, 1961, in a bold speech delivered before a special joint session of the United States Congress, President John F. Kennedy issued a challenge that would define a generation and redirect the trajectory of American science, industry, and global prestige. Speaking just…
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Operation Redwing was a series of 17 nuclear test detonations conducted by the United States at the Pacific Proving Grounds on Bikini and Enewetak Atolls in the Marshall Islands, between May and July of 1956. The operation, overseen by the Atomic Energy Commission (AEC) and carried out…
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