The Broadside

That time we almost destroyed the world

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On a chilly evening in 1961, a B-52 crashed in rural eastern North Carolina near the town of Goldsboro. Any plane crash is bad, but this one was particularly dangerous because onboard that bomber were two nuclear weapons. The event was perhaps the closest the United States has ever come to accidentally detonating a nuclear bomb—and kicking off a nuclear war.

Featuring:

  • Jay Price, Military and Veterans Affairs reporter at WUNC and The American Homefront Project
  • Stephen Schwartz, independent nuclear weapons expert and author of “Atomic Audit: The Costs and Consequences of U.S. Nuclear Weapons Since 1940”

    • Links:

    • Read Jay's article from 2018 marking the 50th anniversary of the Goldsboro nuclear accident. 
    • View photos of the Mars Bluff Crater left behind by the nuclear accident in Florence, South Carolina.

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