The Most Disturbing Beliefs About Radiation And Nuclear Weapons In History

What about nuclear radiation, one of the most dangerous things known to man? Well, some knew. They truly did. Many chose to downplay the threat, while others knew and tried to raise the alarm the best way they could. Of course, although sophisticated beyond belief, mankind's knowledge of radiation was primitive compared to today's understanding of it. The first “nuclear football” For those of you outside the USA, a “bowl” game usually refers to an American championship football game of some kind or another.Show more

At the time professional football was not very popular compared to college football, and the professional football “Super Bowl” didn't exist until 1967. College football dominated, and many of the Marines in Nagasaki were fresh out of school, whether it was high school or college. Football then was not football now in terms of popularity, but it was still very popular, and a lot of those Marines, both officers, and men, had played football in school. Football and Marines just go together, too, you know?

That's why, after the dropping of the atomic bombs on Hiroshima and Nagasaki in August 1945, American occupational troops stationed in Japan on New Years' Day 1946 held "The First Annual Atom Bowl" football game. On a field covered in radioactive dust and glass shards and surrounded by piles of irradiated rubble. The men and women who developed and built the first atomic bombs knew that exposure to high radiation levels could kill.

Most believed that the force of the blast and the fire of an atomic explosion would kill most of the people on whom the bomb was dropped, but knew that a considerable number would die by receiving a fatal blast of radiation in the explosions' first milliseconds. They also knew that many who survived the blast and the initial burst of radiation would likely die, depending on the dose absorbed and other factors. However, they didn't fully comprehend the longterm effects of exposure to lower levels of nuclear radiation could, and often did, do to a person over the years.

A person who may have lived another 10, 20, 30, or more years had they known what rolling around the radiation-covered ground in Nagasaki might do to them. The Second Marines were stationed in and around Nagasaki during the early part of the American occupation of Japan. The 2nd included many college and professional football players in its ranks, and its commander Major General Leroy Hunt knew it and wanted a football game to be played to raise morale on the holiday. So naturally, the Marines of the 2nd were more than happy to oblige. It would be a chance to blow off some steam and build morale, whether you were playing (and yes, the spectators stood on a lot of radiation too). Stop and think about this for a moment, and forget the stuff about radiation.

Can you imagine American troops doing that today? Playing a football game where tens of thousands of people had just died? It would never happen. BUT 2023 is not 1945/46. From the start, the war in the Pacific rivaled, at least in savagery if not scale, the ethnic violence between the Germans and Russians on the Eastern Front. Many of the Marines in the Second were combat veterans, so the thought that they "shouldn't" have a game there didn't enter into it.

#radiation #nuclearweapons #history #nuclearwar #coldwar #armsrace

Scriptwriter: Matthew Gaskill

Video Editor & Motion Graphics: LC

Voice-over Artist: Lain Heringman

Music: Motionarray.com

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