Podcasts about Manhattan Project

Brendan shares his thoughts about seven movies he watched in June of 2025. Join us, won't you?Implosion: The Titanic Sub Disaster (2025)Titan: The OceanGate Submersible Disaster (2025)Raise the Titanic (1987)Deep Sea Adventure (2014)Einstein and the Bomb (2024)The Manhattan Project (2012)Dunkirk (2017)D-Day: The Tide Turns (noiser podcast)Dunkirk: France 1940 (2018)Best in Show (2000)Best in Show Dashing Dogs (2025)The Mask of Zorro (1998)The Monuments Men (2014)What films did you watch in June? Share your viewings over on boardgamegeek in guild #3269.

This episode is a double feature.  We are talking about the clip show where wedding vows are drafted as well as the episode where we meet another one of Chandler's parents.  Let us know your thoughts about the episode at april5k@gmail.com https://seinfeldpodcast.libsyn.com/website www.patreon.com/wrightonnetwork    

Splash to the Rescue, Little League Champs, Manhattan Project, Fernand's Forecast, WNBA Fan-demonium & Shark Karma! Sponsored today by ixllearning.com/kidnuz !

Crain's residential real estate reporter Dennis Rodkin joins host Amy Guth to discuss news from the local housing market, including the sales of Ernest Hemingway's newlywed apartment in the Gold Coast and a South Shore home with ties to the Manhattan Project.Plus: NASCAR will return to Chicagoland Speedway in July 2026, Vernon Hills apartment complex fetches $100 million, priciest suburban sale of 2025; lender seizing distressed hotel in Loop tower set for conversion; and nurses sue Endeavor Health alleging wage theft and dangerous understaffing.

Welcome to The Politicana Podcast — your go-to source for thought-provoking political insights, sharp analysis, fun commentary, and lively debates. Typically, August is known for being slow in the Political world, but I guarantee you will enjoy this episode!For questions and inquiries, reach out to us at⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠ ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠Backofthemob@gmail.com⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠Facebook -> https://bit.ly/3F5YtWcX/Twitter -> https://x.com/Tylers_FatoTikTok -> www.tiktok.com/@notfakenewsYoutube -> https://www.youtube.com/@NotFakeNewsNetwork-- TIMESTAMPS --00:00 - Trump Meets With Zelensky after his Meeting with Putin in Alaska12:00 - Gruesome Gavin Newsom and his new aggressive messaging. Should other Democrats do the same?26:00 -  National Guard Deployed in DC 33:25 - Pete Hegseth Hates Women Voters?42:11 - Trump launches 'Manhattan Project' and seeks to nationalize part of Intel54:35 -  RFK Backtracks on Child Vaccines 1:03:45 - Zelensky Could Be President During War Times Without Election, And Trump Likes It?

A friend from college re-enters Rachel's world, which conjures up memories of coconuts and wild nights calling.  Joey is trying to elbow his way into having his parents invited into Monica's wedding and Chandler IS Batman.   Share your thoughts with us about Winona Ryder star-studded guest spot and Val Kilmer's performance as Batman.  Write into april5k@gmail.com and @april5k to encourage April to rewatch Batman Forever so April and A.J. can discuss the film and do an unboxing of the Batman Forever action figures. www.patreon.com/wrightonnetwork  

Deep dive with Dan Hendrycks, a leading AI safety researcher and co-author of the "Superintelligence Strategy" paper with former Google CEO Eric Schmidt and Scale AI CEO Alexandr Wang.*** SPONSOR MESSAGESGemini CLI is an open-source AI agent that brings the power of Gemini directly into your terminal - https://github.com/google-gemini/gemini-cliProlific: Quality data. From real people. For faster breakthroughs.https://prolific.com/mlst?utm_campaign=98404559-MLST&utm_source=youtube&utm_medium=podcast&utm_content=script-gen***Hendrycks argues that society is making a fundamental mistake in how it views artificial intelligence. We often compare AI to transformative but ultimately manageable technologies like electricity or the internet. He contends a far better and more realistic analogy is nuclear technology. Like nuclear power, AI has the potential for immense good, but it is also a dual-use technology that carries the risk of unprecedented catastrophe.The Problem with an AI "Manhattan Project":A popular idea is for the U.S. to launch a "Manhattan Project" for AI—a secret, all-out government race to build a superintelligence before rivals like China. Hendrycks argues this strategy is deeply flawed and dangerous for several reasons:- It wouldn't be secret. You cannot hide a massive, heat-generating data center from satellite surveillance.- It would be destabilizing. A public race would alarm rivals, causing them to start their own desperate, corner-cutting projects, dramatically increasing global risk.- It's vulnerable to sabotage. An AI project can be crippled in many ways, from cyberattacks that poison its training data to physical attacks on its power plants. This is what the paper refers to as a "maiming attack."This vulnerability leads to the paper's central concept: Mutual Assured AI Malfunction (MAIM). This is the AI-era version of the nuclear-era's Mutual Assured Destruction (MAD). In this dynamic, any nation that makes an aggressive, destabilizing bid for a world-dominating AI must expect its rivals to sabotage the project to ensure their own survival. This deterrence, Hendrycks argues, is already the default reality we live in.A Better Strategy: The Three PillarsInstead of a reckless race, the paper proposes a more stable, three-part strategy modeled on Cold War principles:- Deterrence: Acknowledge the reality of MAIM. The goal should not be to "win" the race to superintelligence, but to deter anyone from starting such a race in the first place through the credible threat of sabotage.- Nonproliferation: Just as we work to keep fissile materials for nuclear bombs out of the hands of terrorists and rogue states, we must control the key inputs for catastrophic AI. The most critical input is advanced AI chips (GPUs). Hendrycks makes the powerful claim that building cutting-edge GPUs is now more difficult than enriching uranium, making this strategy viable.- Competitiveness: The race between nations like the U.S. and China should not be about who builds superintelligence first. Instead, it should be about who can best use existing AI to build a stronger economy, a more effective military, and more resilient supply chains (for example, by manufacturing more chips domestically).Dan says the stakes are high if we fail to manage this transition:- Erosion of Control- Intelligence Recursion- Worthless LaborHendrycks maintains that while the risks are existential, the future is not set. TOC:1 Measuring the Beast [00:00:00]2 Defining the Beast [00:11:34]3 The Core Strategy [00:38:20]4 Ideological Battlegrounds [00:53:12]5 Mechanisms of Control [01:34:45]TRANSCRIPT:https://app.rescript.info/public/share/cOKcz4pWRPjh7BTIgybd7PUr_vChUaY6VQW64No8XMs

From the publisher: "An epic, riveting history based on new interviews and research that elucidates the approval, construction, and fateful decision to drop the atomic bomb on Hiroshima.At 8:15 a.m. on August 6, 1945, the Japanese port city of Hiroshima was struck by the world's first atomic bomb. Built in the US by the top-secret Manhattan Project and delivered by a B-29 Superfortress, a revolutionary long-range bomber, the weapon destroyed large swaths of the city, instantly killing tens of thousands. The world would never be the same.The Hiroshima Men's vivid narrative recounts the decade-long journey toward this first atomic attack. It charts the race for the bomb during World War II, as the Allies fought the Axis powers, and is told through several key characters: General Leslie Groves, leader of the Manhattan Project alongside Robert Oppenheimer; pioneering Army Air Force pilot Colonel Paul Tibbets Jr.; the mayor of Hiroshima, Senkichi Awaya, who would die alongside eighty thousand fellow citizens; and Pulitzer Prize–winning writer John Hersey, who traveled to Japan for the New Yorker to expose the devastation the bomb inflicted on the city and to describe in unflinching detail the dangers posed by radiation poisoning.This thrilling account takes the reader from the corridors of power in the White House and the Pentagon to the test sites of New Mexico; from the air war above Germany to the Potsdam Conference of Truman, Churchill, and Stalin; from the savage reconquest of the Pacific to the deadly firebombing air raids across Japan. The Hiroshima Men also includes Japanese perspectives—a vital aspect often missing from Western narratives—to complete Iain MacGregor's nuanced, deeply human account of the bombing's meaning and aftermath."Ian MacGregor's website can be found at: https://iainmacgregor.com/Information on his book from Simon & Schuster can be found at https://www.simonandschuster.com/books/The-Hiroshima-Men/Iain-MacGregor/9781668038048Support our show and Reach out and Read of Tampa Bay at https://patreon.com/axelbankhistoryAxelbankHistory.com is designed by https://www.ellieclairedesigns.com/Axelbank Reports History and Today" can be found on social media at https://twitter.com/axelbankhistoryhttps://instagram.com/axelbankhistoryhttps://facebook.com/axelbankhistory

2025 American Legion World Series begins THE INTERVIEW Retired Army Maj. Gen. Mark Graham, the executive director of Vets4Warriors, lost both of his sons, including one to suicide. In response, Graham has dedicated his life to mental health awareness and suicide prevention, aligned with the Rutgers UBHC National Call Center. Vets4Warriors hires and trains veterans to be peer support specialists who answer calls within 30 seconds, 24 hours a day, seven days a week. Graham discusses his time in the military, his work to reduce mental health stigma and the suicide rate, and more. SCUTTLEBUTT American Legion Family rallies to help Texas communities in the aftermath of devastating floods in Kerr County The amazing escape of a WWII pilot who crash-landed into a field hosting a Nazi soccer match. OTDIH 1981: IBM enters the personal computer market with the introduction of the IBM 5150. Special Guest: Mark A. Graham.

Darrell Castle recounts the atomic bombing of Hiroshima and Nagasaki, Japan, around the 80th anniversary of the events and where it leaves us in the world today. Transcription / Notes COLONEL PAUL TIBBETS AND THE ATOMIC AGE Hello, this is Darrell Castle with today's Castle Report. This is Friday the 8th day of August in the year of our Lord 2025. Two days ago, on August 6th we remembered the 80th anniversary of the atomic bombing of Hiroshima, Japan. Tomorrow the 9th of August is the 80th anniversary of the atomic bombing of Nagasaki, Japan. I will talk about those events and about where they leave us in the world today. During World War ll the United States was in a technological race with Germany to develop a war winning atomic weapon. The U.S. had some of the smartest people on earth working on the weapon which came to be called “The Manhattan Project.” Einstein gave his theoretical advice and Oppenheimer ran the effort to build a potentially world destroying weapon. No one knew for sure what this weapon would do when it was unleashed. The only thing certain was that its explosive power would be like nothing seen before on earth. I am certainly no scientist and I am not scientifically educated but as I understand it the microscopic particle that makes up matter, called the atom contains enormous energy and if it could be split that energy would be unleashed by way of explosive power. Some scientists were afraid that the explosion would not be able to be contained and would continue until it destroyed the entire universe but they went ahead with it despite the unknown. The allies throughout the war fought a clandestine effort to prevent German scientists from finishing their work first. Many people gave their lives in that effort but eventually German industry was destroyed and only Japan was left. The decision to use the weapon against Japan was President Truman's alone. I understand from much reading on the subject that he was in Europe to conclude the German surrender when he received word that the weapon known as “Little Boy” was ready. His response was “use it.” Winston Churchill once famously said, “I think history will be kind to me because I intend to write it.” The point is that history is written by the winners not the losers. I have read many histories of the end of the war and the decision to use the bomb and my conclusion is that the historical perspective depends on your world view today. I read something this week which asserted that Japan was begging to surrender but Truman wanted to use the bomb so he ignored them. The supposed reason was to send a message to the Soviet Union that the same thing could happen to them. The Soviet angle as a secondary reason makes sense but I see no evidence of Japan begging to surrender. In fact, after the surrender when MacArthur was proconsul in Japan surviving Japanese troops tried to lead a rebellion against the surrender. The real question for debate is, was the dropping of the atomic bomb justified or was it the most heinous crime against humanity in history. Everyone has his opinion, but from the perspective of the Marines and soldiers on the beaches and in the jungles of Asia I doubt that they wanted to invade the Japanese home islands. Perhaps if some of those who condemn the decision had been at Tarawa, Saipan, Iwo Jima, or Okinawa they would see it differently. In any event on August 6th, 1945, a B-29 Super fortress flown by Colonel Paul W. Tibbets Jr and with a crew of 12 more men lifted off the runway on the island of Tinian and headed for Japan and a mission that would forever alter our world. I saw an interview with Colonel Tibbets just before he died and the interviewer gave him a chance to express his sorrow at what he did but he said no I have no regrets. “I viewed my mission as one to save lives. I didn't bomb Pearl Harbor. I didn't start the war. But I was going to finish it.” Colonel Tibbets continued to maintain the same m...

What is the threat of nuclear war today? With tensions on the rise, a new telling of firsthand accounts of the creation of the atomic bomb and the Manhattan Project shows the echoes of those decisions today. 80 years after the US bombing of Hiroshima and Nagasaki, we hear an oral history of the people who built the bomb in secrecy to those who suffered its consequences. In this episode: Garett Graff (@vermontgmg), journalist and historian Episode credits: This episode was produced by Tamara Khandaker, Sonia Bhagat, and Diana Ferrero, with Manny Panaretos, Marcos Bartolomé, Melanie Marich, Kisaa Zehra, Marya Khan, and our guest host, Kevin Hirten. It was edited by Kylene Kiang. Our sound designer is Alex Roldan. Our video editors are Hisham Abu Salah and Mohannad al-Melhem. Alexandra Locke is The Take’s executive producer. Ney Alvarez is Al Jazeera’s head of audio. Connect with us: @AJEPodcasts on X, Instagram, Facebook, and YouTube

What was the Manhattan Project? How accurate is the movie Oppenheimer? Why was the world's first nuclear weapon dropped on Hiroshima? Join James Holland, Al Murray, and Iain MacGregor for Part 1 as they explore the monumental decisions that led to the world's first atomic bomb being dropped at the end of WW2. SUBSCRIBE FOR A FREE WEEK AND GET EPISODE 2 NOW - go to patreon.com/wehaveways A Goalhanger Production Produced by James Regan Exec Producer: Tony Pastor Social: @WeHaveWaysPod Email: wehavewayspodcast@gmail.com Join our ‘Independent Company' with an introductory offer to watch exclusive livestreams, get presale ticket events, and our weekly newsletter - packed with book and model discounts. Membership Club: patreon.com/wehaveways Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Later this month, OpenAI is expected to release the latest version of ChatGPT – the groundbreaking AI chatbot that became the fastest growing app in history when it was launched in 2022.When Sam Altman first pitched an ambitious plan to develop artificial intelligence, he likened it to another world changing, potentially world destroying endeavor: the Manhattan Project, in which the U.S. raced to build an atomic bomb.The sales pitch he made to Elon Musk worked. Altman was promised a billion dollars for the project and was even given a name: OpenAI.In a new book, “Empire of AI: Dreams and Nightmares of Sam Altman's OpenAI,” tech journalist Karen Hao chronicles the company's secretive and zealous pursuit of artificial general intelligence.Today, Hao joins the show to not only pull back the curtain on the company's inner workings through its astronomical rise and very public controversies, but also on the very real human and environmental impacts it has had, all in the name of advancing its technology.For transcripts of Front Burner, please visit: https://www.cbc.ca/radio/frontburner/transcripts

On Wednesday's show: Texas Gov. Greg Abbott and Attorney General Ken Paxton want the state's Supreme Court to order Democrats who broke quorum during the special session to be thrown out of office. Can they do that? We talk through the Texas redistricting fight and discuss the latest developments in politics in our weekly roundup.Also this hour: Houston Restaurant Weeks is underway during the month of August raising funds for the Houston Food Bank. In this month's installment of The Full Menu, food writers talk about what dishes local restaurants are offering this year and what they're looking forward to sampling.And, 80 years after the atomic bomb was dropped on Hiroshima, we talk with an area psychologist and author whose dad took part in the Manhattan Project that developed the bomb. Dr. Leslie Shover talks about her debut novel, Fission: A Novel of Atomic Heartbreak, which is based on anecdotes from her parents during that time.

While Silicon Valley builds advanced AI models and Beijing integrates them into state power, Washington faces an uncomfortable reality: America's innovation machine might not be enough to win the AI race on its own. The problem isn't our technology—it's our government's ability to deploy it.The White House recently released “America's AI Action Plan,” which aims to change this dynamic, calling for everything from "Manhattan Project-style" coordination to federal AI sandboxes. But with the Trump Administration now moving to implement these initiatives, the question becomes: can American democracy move fast enough to compete with authoritarian efficiency? And should it?Charles Clancy, Chief Technology Officer of MITRE, knows the challenges well. His organization serves as a bridge between government needs and technical solutions, and he's seen firsthand how regulatory fragmentation, procurement bottlenecks, and institutional silos turn America's AI advantages into operational disadvantages. His team also finds that Chinese open-weight models outperform American ones on key benchmarks—a potential warning sign as the U.S. and China compete to proliferate their technology across the globe.Clancy argues the solution is not for the U.S. to become China, but rather to take a uniquely American approach—establish federal frontier labs, moonshot challenges, and market incentives that harness private innovation for public missions. He and FAI's Josh Levine join Evan to explore whether democratic institutions can compete with authoritarian efficiency without sacrificing democratic values. View Mitre's proposals for the White House's plan here, and more of Charle's research here. 

Carolyn Beatrice Parker came from a family of doctors and academics and worked during World War II as a physicist on the Dayton Project, a critical part of the Manhattan Project tasked with producing polonium. Polonium is a radioactive metal that was used in the production of early nuclear weapons. After the war, Parker continued her research and her studies at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, but she died of leukemia at age 48, before she was able to defend her PhD thesis. Decades later, during the height of the Black Lives Matter protests, citizens in her hometown of Gainesville, Florida voted to rename an elementary school in her honor. This Best Of episode, which first aired in November 2024, is also available in a Spanish adaptation, narrated by Laura Gómez. Learn about your ad choices: dovetail.prx.org/ad-choices

“Eighty years ago this week,” writes Vermont journalist Garrett Graff, “a group of physicists and military leaders changed warfare — and the world — forever.”August 6 marks the 80th anniversary of the United States atomic bombing of Hiroshima, Japan, which was followed three days later by the atomic bombing of Nagasaki. These two bombings are estimated to have killed over 200,000 people.Graff recounts the scientific and political backstory of the dawn of the nuclear age in his latest book, “The Devil Reached Toward the Sky: An Oral History of the Making and Unleashing of the Atomic Bomb.” This exhaustive work includes testimonies from 500 people who “tell the intertwined story of nuclear physics, the rise of fascism in Europe in the 1930s, the arrival and advance of World War II in the Pacific, and the tremendous effort of the Manhattan Project to deliver two atomic bombs that helped end the war, as well as the haunting on-the-ground stories of Hiroshima and Nagasaki themselves,” writes Graff.Graff says that the story of what gave rise to the nuclear age is “as important now as ever,” as countries around the world, such as Iran, are racing to start or expand their nuclear arsenals.“The world actually stands much closer to the edge of nuclear danger than we have for most of the 80 years since the end of World War II,” Graff told The Vermont Conversation. “This year has already seen two major world conflicts set against nuclear tensions. We've seen open warfare between India and Pakistan already this spring, the two largest nuclear arsenals to ever come into open conflict in world history. And we also saw, of course, the US and Israeli strikes against the Iranian nuclear program.”“There's a possibility, ironically, 15 years after Barack Obama tried to set us on a path toward nuclear abolition, where in the 2020s and 2030s we may actually see more countries join the nuclear club than have ever existed before.”Garrett Graff describes himself as a historian whose work is often filed under current events. He writes about inflection points in history with an eye towards how they impact the present and future. This includes his 2024 book, “When the Sea Came Alive: An Oral History of D-Day,” and his 2022 book, “Watergate: A New History,” which was a finalist for the Pulitzer Prize in History. He is also the editor of an oral history of the COVID-19 pandemic in Vermont that was published earlier this year by the Vermont Historical Society.Graff has had a busy 2025. This spring, his 7-part podcast series dropped, “Breaking the Internet.” In it, he explores how a tool that promised to bring people together has instead driven them apart and has fueled authoritarian movements. This is the fourth season of Long Shadow, Graff's award-winning history podcast.Graff also shares his writing about current politics in his online newsletter, Doomsday Scenario.Graff said that as the U.S. approaches its 250th anniversary, “We are witnessing an unraveling of our small-d democratic traditions in the United States and sort of backsliding in our democracy and the creeping approach of authoritarianism.”“It doesn't feel [like] a coincidence to me that we are watching this backsliding in our democracy at the precise moment 80 years later where we are losing the last members of the Greatest Generation,” those who lived through the Great Depression and World War II. “There is no preordained rule that America remains a democracy," Graff said. "And there's no preordained rule that we remain an economic hegemon. We let both of those things disappear at our own societal and national peril.”

We delve into Scorpio Gold's strategic shift as they sell their Mineral Ridge project to refocus on the promising Manhattan Project. CEO Zayn Kalyan shares insights on the sale's impact, the aggressive drilling plans underway, and the potential for significant resource expansion at Manhattan.

Last time we spoke about Operation Downfall. The Allies, under General Krueger, initiated a decisive campaign to clear the Japanese from Luzon. As they faced the entrenched Shobu Group, challenges included treacherous terrain and a resilient enemy. Simultaneously, Japan braced for an invasion, mobilizing reinforcements and devising defensive strategies to ward off the impending Allied assault. As July approached, General Yamashita's forces prepared to execute a final breakout, but progress was hampered by relentless guerrilla attacks and adverse weather conditions. With Operation Downfall looming, Allied troops focused on strategic landings in Kyushu and Honshu, driven by a relentless determination to defeat the Japanese militarily. The intense battles of Luzon became a precursor to this monumental operation, marking a turning point in the Pacific War.  This episode is The Siege of Japan Welcome to the Pacific War Podcast Week by Week, I am your dutiful host Craig Watson. But, before we start I want to also remind you this podcast is only made possible through the efforts of Kings and Generals over at Youtube. Perhaps you want to learn more about world war two? Kings and Generals have an assortment of episodes on world war two and much more  so go give them a look over on Youtube. So please subscribe to Kings and Generals over at Youtube and to continue helping us produce this content please check out www.patreon.com/kingsandgenerals. If you are still hungry for some more history related content, over on my channel, the Pacific War Channel you can find a few videos all the way from the Opium Wars of the 1800's until the end of the Pacific War in 1945.  Boy I have been waiting a long time to come to this point. One of the most significant events in human history that deeply affects us to this very day. Nuclear war is as much a threat today as it was during the cold war. The dropping of the Atomic bombs on Hiroshima and Nagasaki were deeply complicated events fraught with issues of morality. It goes without saying whether or not the bombs needed to be dropped, their actual impact on the surrender of Japan and so forth are still issues hotly debated to this very day. I have spoken on the issue countless times on my personal channel and podcast, but I figure to do this subject justice I will create a full episode for it. Thus in this episode we are going to just cover what happened, but rest assured I will come back to this later on. As we last explored, following the successful invasion of Luzon in the Philippines, along with the fall of Iwo Jima and Okinawa, American forces began preparing for the final invasion of the Japanese Home Islands. This operation was codenamed Operation Downfall. One key initiative leading up to this invasion was a comprehensive air-sea blockade and bombardment campaign against Japan itself. Previously, we detailed the extensive firebombing and precision bombing efforts executed by General LeMay's 21st Bomber Command. However, during this crucial period, the B-29 Superfortress bombers undertook a distinct operation under the codename Starvation. This single operation would be one of the largest factors that contributed to the surrender of Japan and its one most people have never heard of. In July 1944, Admiral Chester W. Nimitz proposed a bold plan to use B-29 Superfortress bombers to mine the waterways surrounding the Japanese Home Islands. Although Generals Henry H. Arnold and Walter Hansell expressed concerns that this mining campaign could distract from the B-29's primary role as a strategic bombardment aircraft, they eventually agreed to assign one bomber group to focus on aerial mining when conditions permitted. On December 22, Hansell's 21st Bomber Command was directed to formulate a naval mining program aimed at executing between 150 to 200 sorties each month, which was set to begin in April 1945. However, by this time, General Curtis LeMay had taken command of the 21st Bomber Command. LeMay was notably enthusiastic about the idea and successfully recommended to Washington an upgraded mining program that aimed to deploy up to 1,500 mines each month using a full B-29 wing. LeMay viewed aerial mining in a different light than Arnold or Hansell, seeing it as a vital extension of strategic bombing. He recognized that most of Japan's war production materials, as well as a significant portion of its food supplies, were imported from regions such as China, Southeast Asia, and the Dutch East Indies. Japan's industrial heartland is primarily found on Honshu, its largest and most industrialized island, while Shikoku, another island, also lacks essential resources such as iron ore and high-quality coal. These crucial materials were sourced from Kyushu and Hokkaido, both of which are other Japanese islands. All these resources were transported by sea, so without easy access to raw materials, Japan's industrial output would come to a grinding halt. The only aircraft capable of deploying mines effectively where they were needed were the B-29s. Areas such as the Inland Sea, the Sea of Japan, and the Korean Peninsula were out of reach for other Allied aircraft. Additionally, Allied submarines could only venture into these perilous waters with great risk. Notably, about 80% of Japan's merchant fleet utilized the Shimonoseki Strait, a critical waterway that separates Kyushu from Honshu. Understanding the strategic advantage of closing this strait, LeMay decided to allocate an entire wing of B-29s specifically to mine this vital route. Brigadier General John Davies commanded the 313th Bombardment Wing, tasked with deploying approximately 2,000 naval mines each month into Japanese waters. The primary goals of this operation were to prevent essential raw materials and food supplies from reaching the Home Islands, hinder the supply and mobilization of Japanese military forces, and disrupt transportation routes in the Inland Sea of Japan. Between March 27 and April 12, Davies' bombers targeted key enemy shipping bases located in Kure, Sasebo, and Hiroshima. They also focused on the Shimonoseki Strait, a narrow and strategically important waterway that links the Inland Sea with the Tsushima Strait. Notably, after these attacks, this strait was successfully closed for two weeks. On May 3 and 5, the 313th Bombardment Wing laid down a total of 1,422 mines in the waters surrounding the Shimonoseki Strait, as well as near major urban centers like Tokyo, Nagoya, Kobe, and Osaka. These efforts aimed to severely disrupt maritime commerce between Japan's major industrial areas. Just a week later, the minefields expanded from the Shimonoseki Strait to include Kyushu, the southernmost of Japan's four main islands, and northwest Honshu, the largest island containing Tokyo. By the end of that month, these mines were proving remarkably effective, accounting for the sinking of more ships than Japanese submarines. In fact, within the Shimonoseki Strait alone, 113 ships had been sunk. Between June 7 and July 8, American forces expanded and fortified minefields along the western coast of Japan while also replenishing the existing minefields in the Shimonoseki Strait and the Inland Sea. During this effort, they successfully laid a total of 3,542 mines across 14 missions. The "total blockade" officially commenced on July 9 and continued until the end of the war. Throughout this period, American forces executed 474 sorties, dropping another 3,746 mines that replenished existing minefields and extended coverage to harbors in Korea. In total, Brigadier General Davies conducted 46 missions that laid down 26 minefields containing 12,135 mines. Remarkably, only 15 B-29s were lost during these operations. In turn, the mines accounted for the sinking or damaging of 670 Japanese ships, with a total loss of 1.25 million tons. This mining campaign effectively strangled Japanese industry, as the denial of essential raw materials to factories proved more disruptive than the direct bombing of the plants themselves.  Despite the clear vulnerability of Japan's economy to disruptions in coastal shipping, Japanese authorities were alarmingly unprepared to address the threat posed by air-dropped mines. By August 1945, Japan had committed 349 ships and 20,000 personnel to counter the Starvation campaign, but these efforts were overwhelmingly ineffective. The shipping crisis escalated to such a degree that searchlights and anti-aircraft batteries were redeployed from urban centers to defend expected mining targets. Additionally, suicide boats were employed in desperate attempts to clear the minefields. Royal Navy historian S.W. Roskill commented on the situation, stating, “The blockade had, in fact, been far more successful than we realized at the time. Although submarines initially played a critical role in enforcing the blockade, it was the air-laid mines that ultimately strangled Japan.” Japanese officials shared this assessment. A director from a Tokyo steel company reflected on the situation, noting that the denial of essential raw materials to factories caused far greater disruption than the direct bombing of the plants themselves. This contradicted the views of US Army Air Forces experts back in Washington. In a striking remark after the war, a Japanese minesweeping officer told American forces, “The result of B-29 mining was so effective against shipping that it eventually starved the country. You could have likely shortened the war by starting this campaign earlier.” Meanwhile, General LeMay continued his firebombing campaign against Japan. By the end of May, urban areas around Tokyo Bay had been devastated, prompting the 21st Bomber Command to shift focus westward toward the densely populated industrial complexes lining Osaka Bay. On June 1, 521 B-29s were dispatched to bomb industrial targets situated along the Yodo River, with an escort of 148 P-51 fighters. Unfortunately, an undetected thunderstorm struck en route, which meant only 27 P-51s reached Osaka, while another 27 crashed, and the remaining fighters had to return to Iwo Jima. Despite these complications, the B-29s bombed from altitudes ranging between 18,000 and 28,500 feet, successfully dropping 2,788 tons of incendiary bombs on Osaka. The attack resulted in the burning of 3.15 square miles, destroying 136,107 houses and 4,222 factories. Four days later, on June 3, 530 unescorted B-29 Superfortresses launched a bombing raid on the city of Kobe. Of those, 473 aircraft targeted the city, resulting in the destruction of 4.35 square miles. This devastating strike led to the demolition of 51,399 buildings, while another 928 suffered significant damage. The raid, however, came with losses, as 11 bombers were downed, and 176 were damaged in the operation. On June 7, 449 B-29s returned to Osaka. Despite facing heavy cloud cover that restricted visibility, they managed to burn an additional 2.21 square miles of the city, destroying another 55,333 buildings.  By the conclusion of General Curtis LeMay's maximum-effort area bombing campaign, the six most significant industrial cities in Japan, Tokyo, Nagoya, Kobe, Osaka, Yokohama, and Kawasaki, had been left in ruins. Major factories were either destroyed or severely damaged, while thousands of smaller household and feeder industrial units were consumed by flames. Casualty figures surged into six figures, leaving millions of people homeless. The evacuation of survivors further complicated efforts to secure labor for the factories that remained operational. Japan's air-raid protection system proved woefully inadequate to withstand a protracted siege by very heavy bombers. The system lacked sufficient organization, trained personnel, shelters, fire-fighting equipment, and facilities for relief and evacuation. Additionally, there was a significant deficiency in civilian indoctrination regarding emergency procedures. Under the relentless pressure of repeated major attacks, local Air Raid Precaution organizations collapsed, adding strain to an already overburdened imperial government. Japanese civilians, who had been conditioned by victory propaganda, displayed little of the discipline that helped German citizens endure years of aerial bombardment. As news of military defeats and the impact of B-29 precision strikes filtered into the great cities, residents began to lose confidence in their leaders' ability to protect them or care for the victims of the attacks. Abe Motoki, the Minister of Home Affairs at the time, later remarked, “I believe that after the raids on Tokyo on May 23-24, 1945, civilian defense measures in that city, as well as in other parts of Japan, were considered a futile effort.” Regarding the operational cost of this campaign for the 21st Bomber Command, it was not considered excessively burdensome. Over the course of 17 maximum-effort incendiary attacks, LeMay dispatched a total of 6,960 B-29s, which dropped 41,592 tons of bombs. The losses amounted to 136 B-29s, averaging only 1.9% of the sorties, a rate significantly lower than what had been endured in earlier months, and quite acceptable by the standards of conventional strategic bombing. Meteorologists predicted that the summer monsoon would keep Japan's skies covered with clouds for most of the upcoming months, from June to August. As a result, LeMay shifted strategies under what became known as the Empire Plan. This approach prioritized targeting industrial and military sites during daylight hours when the weather permitted, while secondary cities that had sufficient industrial capability became targets for nighttime area attacks. This change meant that since no single target warranted a full four-wing maximum effort, multiple missions could be scheduled in a single day. Accordingly, on June 9, 110 B-29s attacked three aircraft factories located in Narao, Atsuta, and Akashi. The strikes successfully destroyed the factories in Narao and Atsuta, but an unfortunate miscalculation led to the bombing of the town near Akashi. The following day, June 10, a force of 280 B-29s, escorted by 107 P-51 Mustang fighters, targeted six distinct sites in the Tokyo Bay area. The mission yielded significant results, with all targets sustaining heavy damage. Finally, on June 15, 516 B-29s were dispatched for one last firebombing raid against Osaka and the neighboring city of Amagasaki. In this combined assault, 444 bombers dropped over 1,350 tons of incendiary bombs, incinerating an additional 1.9 square miles in Osaka and more than half a square mile in Amagasaki. Starting on June 17, General Curtis LeMay's firebombing campaigns began to focus on medium-sized secondary cities across Japan. On that day, 477 B-29 Superfortresses targeted the cities of Omuta, Hamamatsu, Yokkaichi, and Kagoshima, burning a combined total of six square miles in these urban areas. The success of this initial multi-target mission ensured the continuation of the program, establishing an operational pattern that would remain standard during the final weeks of the war. In total, multiple incendiary attacks were conducted on sixteen occasions, averaging about two missions per week. Between June 17 and August 14, American forces carried out 8,014 sorties, dropping a staggering 54,184 tons of incendiaries across 58 secondary cities. On June 22, 446 B-29s were dispatched to strike six targets located in southern Honshu, including the crucial Kure Naval Arsenal. In this mission, 382 bombers released 2,103 tons of bombs, inflicting heavy damage to these essential manufacturing facilities. Just four days later, on June 26, a force of 510 B-29s, accompanied by 148 P-51 Mustang escorts, targeted locations in southern Honshu and the nearby island of Shikoku. However, dense clouds over much of the area complicated assembly and forced many aircraft to attack targets of opportunity individually or in small groups. As a result, adverse weather conditions would delay subsequent daytime raids until July 24.  In the coordinated strike program that commenced in June, the decision to focus on either the Empire Plan or urban industrial targets was largely influenced by weather conditions. As the program took shape, the 315th Bombardment Wing (VH) became available for combat operations. This wing operated somewhat independently from the other bomber units, with its activities significantly guided by the specialized equipment of its aircraft. Authorized for deployment in the Pacific in December 1944, the 315th settled at Northwest Field, Guam, during May and June. Its commander, Brigadier General Frank A. Armstrong, Jr., was a seasoned veteran of the strategic air offensive against Germany. The B-29s of the 315th Wing differed in two key respects from those of other units. They were equipped with the AN/APQ-7 (Eagle) radar, a sophisticated radar system designed for bombing, instead of the conventional AN/APQ-13 radar. The latter had primarily served as a navigational aid. While crews had become adept at using the AN/APQ-13 for night or poor-weather bombing, it lacked the precision necessary for accurate strikes. The Eagle radar, however, offered significantly greater definition and, although it required a long bomb run averaging seventy miles, this was not considered a serious hindrance in the tactical context of Japan. To further enhance its night-bombing capabilities, the Superfortresses had been stripped of all armament except for the tail gun. This modification, along with the Eagle radar, clearly marked the 315th as a dedicated night-bombing unit. There were various proposals for the use of these specially equipped B-29s, including high-altitude bombing, area bombing, and aerial mining. However, by the time the 315th Wing was ready for combat, the 313th Bombardment Wing had already gained proficiency in aerial mining, while all wings had become adept at area bombing using the AN/APQ-13. Training for the 315th had focused heavily on night radar tactics, with less emphasis on visual bombing and daytime formation flights. It was evident that if the Eagle radar was to undergo a thorough scientific evaluation, it should be tested against a specific set of targets that were preferably large in size and located along the coastline. In the view of the 21st Bomber Command, the oil industry met these requirements perfectly. The 315th Bombardment Wing initiated its specialized campaign on June 26 with a targeted strike against the Utsube Oil Refinery in Yokkaichi, the top-priority target. By August 14, the wing had conducted 15 additional missions against a total of 10 targets, which included various petroleum refineries and synthetic plants, such as the Maruzen Oil Company in Wakayama, Mitsubishi Oil Company in Kawasaki, and Nippon Oil Company plants spread across Akita, Kansai, Kudamatsu, and Amagasaki, as well as the Imperial Fuel Industry Company in Ube and Toa Fuel Industry in Wakayama. During the campaign, the 315th Wing dispatched a total of 1,200 B-29s, 1,095 of which successfully bombed their primary targets, dropping 9,084 tons of 500-pound general-purpose bombs deemed particularly effective against the scattered installations. The increase in bomb load capacity was made possible by stripping the planes of unnecessary equipment and conducting bombing missions individually at night. As the crews gained experience, they were able to increase the average weight carried from 14,631 pounds during the first mission to 20,684 pounds by August 9. Despite concerns about safety from removing most of the aircraft's armaments, only four planes were lost and 66 sustained damage throughout the campaign. The 20th Air Force estimated that the B-29 attacks led to the destruction of approximately 6 million barrels of tank storage capacity, and the United States Strategic Bombing Survey (USSBS) reported that refining capacity had been reduced from 90,000 barrels a day in December 1941 to around 17,000 barrels. However, the strategic impact was more apparent than real, as many storage tanks were empty and refinery production had fallen to just 4% of capacity before the very heavy bomber campaign began. The lack of precise intelligence regarding the state of Japan's economy had justified the emphasis on the oil program as a form of reinsurance. Nevertheless, the blockade had effectively severed the nation's oil resources, resulting in tankers remaining idle at the docks. On July 1, Admiral Halsey's 3rd Fleet departed San Pedro Bay to initiate the first preliminary strikes in preparation for Operation Olympic. This operation involved battleships and heavy cruisers conducting surface bombardments of industrial targets in eastern Japan, while lighter forces performed anti-shipping sweeps along the coast. Additionally, a fleet of submarines advanced ahead of Admiral McCain's Task Force 38 to eliminate picket boats and establish lifeguard positions. At 18:15 on July 9, the force began its 25-knot approach toward the Home Islands, launching its first strikes against the Tokyo area at 04:00 on July 10. A total of 1,732 sorties were executed, targeting locations from Koriyama to Hamamatsu, dropping 454 tons of bombs and 1,648 rockets over Honshu with negligible opposition. American airmen reported the destruction of 109 enemy aircraft and damage to 231 during these strikes.   Following this, Halsey's fleet moved north to bombard Hokkaido and northern Honshu, which were beyond the effective range of the B-29s and had previously evaded attack. At 05:59 on July 14, Rear-Admiral John Shafroth's Bombardment Group Able, consisting primarily of three battleships and two heavy cruisers, was tasked with attacking the Kamaishi Works of the Japan Iron Company. By midday, Shafroth's forces had opened fire on Kamaishi, marking the first surface bombardment of Japan by a hostile fleet in over 80 years. Between 12:10 and 14:19, a total of 802 16-inch shells, 728 8-inch shells, and 825 5-inch shells were expended, setting the town ablaze as key industrial and residential targets were hit and resulting in the sinking of one oil tanker, two barges, and one small ship in the harbor. Simultaneously, McCain's carriers closed to within 80 nautical miles of Japan, launching 1,391 sorties against Hokkaido and northern Honshu to target railways, shipping, and airfields, again facing only light resistance. In the ensuing strikes, American planes sank over 50,000 tons of shipping and naval craft, including the destroyer Tachibana, four minesweepers, eight naval auxiliaries, and around 20 merchant vessels, with significant losses occurring at Muroran and Hakodate. In addition, 25 enemy planes were destroyed, while American losses totaled 24 aircraft and 17 airmen, about half of whom were lost in combat. Task Force 38 launched another assault on July 15, executing 966 combat sorties that dropped 355 tons of bombs and expended 2,093 rockets. This operation resulted in the sinking of 65 vessels and damaging 128 others, as well as the destruction of 48 locomotives and damage to 28. Widespread destruction was inflicted on several facilities, particularly the Aomori–Hakodate railcar ferry system, which transported 30% of the coal between Hokkaido and Honshu. The strikes devastated the ferry system, sinking eight ferries, beaching eight more, and damaging two. In total, 70 auxiliary sailing colliers were sunk, and 11 were damaged, along with 10 steel freighters lost and 7 damaged. The ferry strikes were the brainchild of Halsey's operations officer, Captain Ralph “Rollo” Wilson. “When the first action reports began to sift in,” Halsey related: He snatched them up and pored over them; the ferries were not mentioned. Later reports also ignored them. Rollo was sulking and cursing when the final reports arrived. I heard him whistle and saw him beam. “Six ferries sunk!” he said. “Pretty soon we'll have ‘em moving their stuff by oxcarts and skiffs!”  Additionally, 20 city blocks in Kushiro were razed. The most significant outcome of these operations was the virtual severance of Hokkaido from Honshu. By the end of the raids, Halsey's 3rd Fleet had achieved the sinking of 140 ships and small craft, damaging 235 others, and destroying 38 planes while damaging 46. Meanwhile, Rear-Admiral Oscar Badger's Bombardment Group Baker, composed of three battleships, two light cruisers, and eight destroyers, was assigned to bombard Muroran. Between 09:36 and 10:25, this group fired 860 16-inch shells at the Nihon Steel Company and the Wanishi Ironworks, targeting both the coal liquefaction plant and coke ovens. This bombardment inflicted severe damage on those facilities and resulted in the destruction or damage of 2,541 houses in Muroran. As Hasley recalled “These sweeps and bombardments accomplished more than destruction. they showed the enemy that we made no bones about playing in his front yard. From now on, we patrolled his channels and shelled his coast almost every night that the weather permitted.” Additionally, Rear-Admiral James Cary Jones' four light cruisers conducted a sweep along the east coast of Honshu to hunt for Japanese shipping; however, they reported no contacts during their mission. Early on July 16, Task Force 38 retired east of Honshu to begin refueling and rendezvoused with Admiral Rawlings' Task Force 37, which agreed to operate closely as an additional task group for Admiral Halsey. At 03:50 on July 17, the two task forces began launching strikes against central Honshu despite adverse weather conditions. The American forces executed 205 sorties targeting the Mito area, while British aircraft flew 87 sorties against airfields and railyards along the northwest coast of Honshu. Despite the bad weather, several small craft and locomotives were destroyed, though the operation resulted in the loss of nine aircraft and four airmen. Later that afternoon, Halsey detached Badger's augmented Bombardment Group to attack Hitachi, a significant industrial and electronics-producing city. The 53-minute bombardment commenced in fog and rain at 23:14, during which 1,207 16-inch shells, 267 14-inch shells, and 292 6-inch rounds were expended against the Tago and Mito Works of the Hitachi Manufacturing Company, as well as the Yamate Plant and copper refining facilities of Hitachi Mine, resulting in severe devastation. On July 18, McCain's two leading carriers launched a total of 592 sorties against Yokosuka, specifically targeting the heavily camouflaged battleship Nagato at the naval base. The attacks resulted in the sinking of one old cruiser, one minesweeper, one submarine, one incomplete destroyer, and three patrol vessels, in addition to damaging one subchaser, one old destroyer, and one old battleship. Although Nagato was hit multiple times and suffered heavy damage, it managed to stay afloat. Meanwhile, three carriers also targeted airfields and other opportunities in Tokyo, while Task Force 37 attacked a seaplane base at Kitaura and airfields at Nobara, Naruto, Chosi, Kanoike, Natori, and Kitakawa. The recent raids resulted in the destruction of 43 enemy planes and damage to 77 others on the ground, along with the destruction of three locomotives and the derailing of four electrified train cars by rockets. However, the American forces incurred losses of 14 aircraft and 18 aircrew, as the 3rd Fleet flyers reported encountering the fiercest anti-aircraft fire they had yet experienced. Additionally, Rear-Admiral Carl Holden's four light cruisers were detached during the night to sweep shipping off Sagami Bay and to target the radar site at Cape Nojima. On July 21, Captain Thomas Hederman's Destroyer Squadron 61, consisting of nine destroyers, was assigned to conduct another anti-shipping sweep off Sagami Bay. Pursuing four radar contacts, the destroyers engaged targets at midnight on July 22, firing guns and torpedoes from 7,000 yards. This action resulted in the sinking of the 800-ton freighter No.5 Hakutetsu Maru and damaging the 6,919-ton Enbun Maru. In response, Japanese coastal artillery, the minesweeper W-1, and subchaser Ch-42 returned fire, but Hederman's squadron successfully retired without damage. Although minor in scale, the Battle of Sagami Bay would ultimately be the last surface action of the war. Meanwhile, as part of Operation Barney, a planned submarine penetration of the Sea of Japan, nine submarines succeeded in sinking 27 Japanese merchant vessels and one submarine, totaling 54,786 tons.  On June 8, the submarine Barb commenced her twelfth patrol, tasked with terrorizing the Sea of Okhotsk using her newly installed 5-inch rocket launchers. Over the following weeks, Skipper Commander Eugene “Luckey” Fluckey executed successful rocket bombardments on Shari, Hokkaido, and targets in Shikuka, Kashiho, and Shiritoru on Karafuto (southern Sakhalin), also employing the submarine's deck guns to destroy 35 sampans in the town of Kaihyo To. Observing Karafuto trains transporting military supplies to ports, Fluckey devised a plan to intercept these trains. Engineman Third Class Billy Hatfield recalled how, as a child, he had placed nuts on railroad ties and watched as the weight of passing trains cracked them between rail and tie. Realizing this principle could be adapted, he suggested rigging an automatic detonator. Fluckey had many volunteers for the mission, including a Japanese POW, and carefully selected Hatfield and seven others, deciding against leading the shore party himself. Just after midnight on July 23, 1945, Fluckey maneuvered Barb to within 950 yards of the Karafuto coast. Led by Lieutenant William Walker, the team launched two rubber rafts at 00:30. Before they left, Fluckey instructed them, “Boys, if you get stuck, head for Siberia, 130 miles north, following the mountain ranges. Good luck.” Upon reaching the shore, the Americans located the tracks and buried a 55-pound scuttling charge and battery beneath the rails, positioning it under a water tower they planned to use as a lookout. As Motor Machinist's Mate First Class John Markuson climbed up, he unexpectedly found he was scaling a sentry tower, causing him to retreat without alerting the sleeping guard. When a train passed, the team dove for cover before resuming their work after it had gone by. Shortly after 01:30, Walker's team signaled their return to Barb, which was now just 600 yards offshore. Fifteen minutes later, while the boats were halfway back, Fluckey heard the rumble of an approaching train. He hoisted a megaphone and urged the crew to “Paddle like the devil, boys!” At 01:47, a 16-car Japanese train struck Hatfield's detonator, resulting in a massive explosion that sent debris soaring 200 feet into the air and reportedly killed 150 Japanese. Minutes later, all eight Americans were safely aboard Barb, which then slipped back into the night, having successfully executed the only amphibious invasion of Japan during World War II. Returning to the main action, Halsey aimed to eliminate the remnants of the Combined Fleet at the heavily fortified Kure Naval Base. Consequently, Task Force 38 began launching the first of 1,363 sorties against ships and airfields in Kyushu, Shikoku, and Honshu, ringing the Inland Sea at 04:40 on July 24. A total of 599 tons of bombs and 1,615 rockets were unleashed over Kure, resulting in the sinking or damaging of 22 warships, which totaled 258,000 tons. Among the affected vessels were the battleships Hyuga, Ise, and Haruna; fleet carriers Amagi and Katsuragi; the escort carrier Kaiyo; heavy cruisers Tone and Aoba; as well as light cruisers Oyodo and Kitakami. In addition, another 53 vessels amounting to 17,000 tons were sunk at various locations, including Hiroshima Bay, Niihama, Bungo Channel, and Kii Channel. At Kobe, the incomplete fleet carrier Aso was also attacked and damaged. American Hellcats and Corsairs effectively swept aside Japanese aerial opposition, shooting down 18 enemy planes while destroying 40 aircraft and damaging another 80 on the ground. Furthermore, around the Inland Sea, 16 locomotives were destroyed and five were damaged, while 20 hangars sustained damage. Three oil tanks were set ablaze at Kure and one at Tano. Additionally, four electric trains and a roundhouse were strafed at Hamamatsu, and various military installations, including barracks, warehouses, power plants, and factories around the airfields, received significant damage. Simultaneously, Rear-Admiral Rawlings' Task Force 37 conducted 257 sorties against targets in Japan and the surrounding offshore areas, sinking the escort carrier Shimane Maru in Shido Bay, along with a number of destroyers, small escorts, and coasters. Meanwhile, Jones' light cruisers swept through the Kii Channel before bombarding the Kushimoto seaplane base and airfields at Cape Shionomisaki during the night. Supporting these efforts, General LeMay dispatched 625 B-29s against seven targets in the Nagoya and Osaka areas, successfully inflicting heavy damage on all of them despite the spotty weather, marking this as the last major attack on the Japanese mainland during the war, as two weeks of cloudy weather ensued. In the early hours of July 25, McCain's aircraft carriers resumed launching strikes against airfields and shipping in the Inland Sea and the Nagoya-Osaka areas. During this operation, they executed a total of 655 sorties, expending 185 tons of bombs and 1,162 rockets, successfully sinking nine ships totaling 8,000 tons and damaging another 35 vessels. The strikes also resulted in the downing of 21 Japanese planes, with an additional 61 aircraft destroyed on the ground and 68 damaged. After refueling on July 27, Halsey's carrier forces moved to launch points located 96 nautical miles off Shikoku. At 04:43 on July 28, they resumed strikes over the Inland Sea, focusing on targets from northern Kyushu to Nagoya, as well as airfields across Honshu along the Sea of Japan. This resulted in McCain flying a total of 1,602 sorties, dropping 605 tons of bombs and expending 2,050 rockets. These attacks sank 27 ships, amounting to 43,000 tons, including the battleships Ise and Haruna, the fleet carrier Amagi, and the Combined Fleet flagship Oyodo. Additionally, 78 vessels totaling 216,000 tons were reported damaged, among them the fleet carrier Katsuragi, heavy cruiser Tone, and light cruiser Kitakami. American pilots reported the destruction of 21 Japanese aircraft in the air and claimed 115 destroyed on the ground across 30 area airfields. They also successfully destroyed 14 locomotives, four oil cars, two roundhouses, three oil tanks, three warehouses, one hangar, and a transformer station. In support of these efforts, Task Force 37 conducted 260 sorties against the eastern Inland Sea, targeting the dockyard at Harima and sinking or severely damaging four corvettes at Maizuru. Meanwhile, the 7th Air Force's 11th and 494th Bombardment Groups carried out a day-long raid on Kure, successfully sinking the heavy cruiser Aoba. By sunset that evening, the Imperial Japanese Navy had effectively ceased to exist, though the cost for the Americans was steep, with losses amounting to 101 planes and 88 men since July 24. As Halsey moved east to target the Osaka-Nagoya area, Shafroth's reinforced Bombardment Group was detached on July 29 to bombard Hamamatsu. During the night, they successfully unloaded 810 16-inch shells, 265 14-inch shells, and 1,035 8-inch shells, damaging the Imperial Government Railway locomotive works, igniting a blaze at the Japanese Musical Instrument Company, and wreaking havoc on infrastructure along the critical Tokaido main line. The following day, McCain's carriers conducted 1,224 sorties against airfields in Osaka, Kobe, Maizuru, and Nagoya, expending 397 tons of bombs and 2,532 rockets. These strikes resulted in the sinking of 20 vessels totaling 6,000 tons and damaging another 56 ships. The pilots also claimed destruction of 115 enemy aircraft on the ground, while inflicting severe damage on numerous industrial targets, including aircraft factories and naval docks in Maizuru. In Miyazu Bay, the destroyer Hatsushino struck an air-dropped naval mine, marking the final loss of 129 Japanese destroyers sunk during the war. That night, seven destroyers advanced deep into Suruga Bay, unleashing 1,100 5-inch shells on Shimizu within seven minutes, successfully destroying or damaging 118 industrial buildings. Typhoon weather would impede the operations of the 3rd Fleet for the next two weeks, as Admiral Nimitz ordered Halsey to steer clear of southern Japan, which was set to become the target of a new and deadly weapon: the atomic bomb. The U.S. Army had begun its project to develop an atomic bomb on August 16, 1942, under the auspices of the Manhattan Project. The project was directed by Major-General Leslie Groves and involved renowned scientists such as Robert Oppenheimer, Enrico Fermi, Niels Bohr, Richard Feynman, and Albert Einstein. Over time, it expanded to include a design center at Los Alamos and two production facilities at Hanford and Clinton. By August 1945, the teams at Los Alamos had successfully designed, developed, and built a gun-type atomic bomb capable of forcing five pounds of uranium-235 against another 17 pounds at high speed, thereby achieving critical mass and releasing immense heat, light, blast, and radiation. The team was also experimenting with an even more powerful device: the plutonium bomb, which utilized an implosion method whereby a sphere of plutonium was compressed by conventional explosives to reach criticality. By early August, scientists had managed to produce enough nuclear material to create only one uranium device, known as Little Boy, and one plutonium bomb, referred to as Fat Man. Each weapon had the potential to annihilate an entire city, and American leaders were prepared to use them if it could compel the Japanese Empire to surrender without necessitating an invasion of Japan. A Targeting Committee led by Groves, consisting of Manhattan Project and Air Force personnel, recommended Hiroshima, Niigata, Kokura, and Nagasaki as primary targets.  Groves' Targeting Committee employed several criteria to select sites for atomic bomb targets. The chosen targets had to possess strategic value to the Japanese and be situated between Tokyo and Nagasaki. Additionally, the target needed to feature a large urban area with a minimum diameter of three miles and must be relatively untouched by previous bombings, ironically spared for potential atomic destruction at a later stage. A crucial condition was that, to the best of their knowledge, these areas should harbor no concentrations of Allied prisoners of war. However, this requirement was challenging to ascertain accurately due to a lack of reliable information about the locations of prisoners. Initially, the committee considered 17 candidates and selected five primary targets: Hiroshima, Yokohama, Kokura, Niigata, and Kyoto. On May 28, they narrowed the list to three: Kyoto, Niigata, and Hiroshima. Hiroshima was significant as it housed Hata's 2nd General Army headquarters and featured a large shipyard, while Niigata was a major industrial city with an important port. Moreover, Kyoto held considerable cultural and religious significance for the Japanese. Secretary of War Stimson, having previously cautioned General Arnold about the humanitarian consequences of targeting cities with incendiary bombings, insisted on removing Kyoto from the list after intense discussions with Groves. On July 21, President Truman concurred with Stimson during their meetings in Potsdam, deciding that Kyoto should be spared. Subsequently, Kokura, known for its large arsenal and ordnance works, replaced Kyoto. Additionally, LeMay's staff reportedly included Nagasaki as an alternate target due to potential weather issues, as it was home to Mitsubishi's arms factories, electric production facilities, ordnance works, and extensive dockyards, making it a valuable target. Meanwhile, a high-level civilian Interim Committee, under Secretary of War Henry Stimson, ultimately advised President Truman on the use of nuclear weapons, reasoning that their deployment would be no worse than the current incendiary bombing campaigns against Japan. The committee also recommended that an atomic bomb be deployed as soon as possible, without warning, to maximize shock value and target a "war plant… surrounded by workers' houses." Following a successful operational test of the experimental plutonium bomb conducted at Trinity on July 16, President Truman authorized General Spaatz to prepare for the bomb drops before August 3. Colonel Paul Tibbets' 509th Composite Group had been specially organized in secret since September 1944 to deliver nuclear weapons, and by June, it had arrived at Tinian under the command of LeMay's 21st Bomber Command. General Twinning replaced LeMay as commander of the 21st on August 1, and he would ultimately issue the direct orders for Tibbets to drop the atomic bomb. The atomic bomb mission had a convoluted command structure. The Joint Chiefs of Staff were largely left out of the chain of command. LeMay was Tibbet's nominal commander; however, Groves still had extensive control over the operation through his deputy Brigadier General Thomas Farrell on Tinian. The 21st Bomber Command would determine when the atomic bomb mission was launched, based on suitable weather conditions. Even at this stage, General of the Air Force Henry "Hap" Arnold and LeMay were still skeptical about the Manhattan Project; they thought B-29 incendiary and high-explosive bombing operations would suffice to end the war soon. LeMay even questioned the 509th CG pilots' ability to conduct the mission; he wanted seasoned Pacific B-29 veteran crews to drop the nuclear cargo. While the Imperial Japanese Army (IJA) and Imperial Japanese Navy (IJN) prepared for an impending invasion, the U.S. Army Air Forces (USAAF) continued its bombing campaign against Japan. The crews of the 509th Composite Group needed to acclimate to the navigational challenges, varied weather conditions, extensive distances, and the geography of the region, all while becoming accustomed to combat situations. Training commenced at Tinian on June 30, with conventional operational missions over Japan beginning on July 20. To prepare for their atomic missions, the crews trained with "pumpkins," which were specially constructed bombs designed to mimic the appearance and weight of nuclear weapons. This allowed them to practice handling and releasing the bombs. They also rehearsed navigational procedures, visual bomb release techniques, and dropping the weapon at an altitude of approximately 30,000 feet. Following the drop, the crew conducted high-speed, radical turns to evade the nuclear effects after detonation. During their first mission, a B-29 from the 509th sought an alternative target in Tokyo. The crew aimed to drop their 10,000-pound "pumpkin" on the Imperial Palace, but unfortunately, they missed their target. Had they succeeded in killing the emperor, it could have significantly impacted Japan's decision-making process, potentially fortifying the Japanese people's resolve to continue the war. Military leaders might have seized control in the aftermath, pushing their forces to keep fighting. Throughout their training, the units of the 21st Bomber Command intentionally avoided targeting Hiroshima, Niigata, Kokura, and Nagasaki during these practice runs. In total, Tibbets directed his crews on numerous combat missions that targeted 28 cities and involved the dropping of 49 "pumpkins." Remarkably, the 509th lost no aircraft during these operations. While Tibbets focused on perfecting the delivery method, the weapons Little Boy and Fat Man were being transported to Tinian. Some weapon assemblies were delivered by C-54 and B-29 aircraft from Kirtland Field near Albuquerque, while the cruiser Indianapolis delivered the fissionable material for Little Boy from San Francisco on July 26. Four days later, the submarine I-58 unexpectedly attacked the Indianapolis with six torpedoes while the cruiser was en route to Guam, successfully sinking it. Of the crew, 850 Americans survived the sinking, and another 316 were belatedly rescued by August 8. By July 31, most of the assembly of Little Boy had been completed. However, a detonation expert would need to emplace the cordite charges to fire the uranium "bullet" through the gun device to the uranium core after take-off, minimizing the risk of an inadvertent nuclear explosion in the event of a B-29 crash. Additionally, the crew carrying the atomic bomb had to exercise caution when descending once Little Boy was armed because the primary radar or a backup barometric fuse could potentially trigger an explosion if the aircraft descended too rapidly with the fuses in place. On August 2, B-29 crews arrived at Tinian with the assemblies for Fat Man. On that same day, General Twinning and President Truman approved the plan to bomb Hiroshima. Two days later, Colonel Tibbets briefed the crews about the mission, confirming that he would pilot the aircraft carrying the atomic bomb. Tibbets' B-29 No. 82, later named Enola Gay, was supported by three weather reconnaissance aircraft that reported conditions at Hiroshima, Kokura, and Nagasaki, as well as two additional B-29s assigned to conduct scientific and photographic missions. At 02:45 on August 6, Enola Gay took off from Tinian, with diversionary attacks by 604 B-29s throughout Japan also scheduled for that day, as coordinated by Twinning. After passing through Iwo Jima at approximately 05:55, Captain William Parsons and Second-Lieutenant Morris Jeppson armed the bomb at 07:30. Throughout the journey, the B-29s ascended slowly, reaching an altitude of over 30,000 feet as they crossed Shikoku and Honshu, finally reaching Hiroshima at 31,060 feet. At 09:12, Tibbets executed his final approach from the 'initial point', flying east-west over the city towards the intersection of the Ota and Motoyasu Rivers. Approximately at 09:15, Little Boy was released, and Enola Gay immediately began its turn away to escape the impending explosion. However, the bomb mistakenly descended towards the Shima Surgical Hospital rather than the intended target, the Aioi Bridge. At 09:16, Little Boy detonated at an altitude of 1,890 feet, just as Tibbets was about six miles away from the blast point. As a result of the atomic blast, the immediate area around the epicenter was heated to an astonishing 1 million degrees Celsius, instantly incinerating or vaporizing all people, animals, buildings, and other items within that zone. Hiroshima police officials estimated that immediate casualties amounted to 71,379 individuals who were either killed or reported missing. In the surrounding areas, the blast effects crushed unreinforced structures before igniting them, resulting in an additional 68,023 wounded, with 19,691 of those injuries classified as serious. Subsequent assessments, potentially incorporating the impacts of radiation sickness or more precise accounting, recorded 30,524 individuals as seriously wounded and 48,606 as slightly wounded. Just two minutes after detonation, a growing mushroom cloud of highly radioactive dust and debris soared to a height of 20,000 feet. Within eight minutes, Tibbets' crew could observe the mushroom cloud from 390 miles away. Ultimately, the dust cloud peaked at approximately 60,000 feet in altitude. Soon after, a thick, black, radioactive rain fell upon the areas beneath the cloud. The center of the city was utterly devastated; over four square miles of the urban center, which encompassed seven square miles in total, were completely flattened, resulting in about 60% of the city's area being destroyed. An additional 0.6 square miles suffered damage, while more than 75% of the city's 90,000 buildings were obliterated. The ensuing fires compounded the devastation, contributing to countless deaths and injuries. Tragically, some American prisoners of war were present in Hiroshima and lost their lives in the explosion. Meanwhile, Enola Gay safely returned to Tinian at 14:58, where Tibbets was awarded the Distinguished Service Cross, while the rest of the crew received Distinguished Flying Crosses for their participation in the mission. I would like to take this time to remind you all that this podcast is only made possible through the efforts of Kings and Generals over at Youtube. Please go subscribe to Kings and Generals over at Youtube and to continue helping us produce this content please check out www.patreon.com/kingsandgenerals. If you are still hungry after that, give my personal channel a look over at The Pacific War Channel at Youtube, it would mean a lot to me. Japan was broken. To be perfectly honest she had been broken long ago. Her leadership had been spending months trying to figure out the best possible way to surrender, while the civilians and troops were suffering horribly. Aerial mining strangled her of food, high explosive and incendiary bombs, killed untold scores of people, and then the Atomic weapons were let loose upon her. It was over.

You'd think the guy helping build the deadliest weapon in history would be someone the Allies vetted carefully. You'd be wrong. Klaus Fuchs was a physicist, a refugee, and a trusted member of the Manhattan Project. He was also a Soviet spy. His quiet betrayal helped the USSR test its first atomic bomb years ahead of schedule—ending America's monopoly on nuclear weapons and setting the stage for the Cold War. All in the name of “peace.” "Crimes of the Centuries" is a podcast from Grab Bag Collab exploring forgotten crimes from times past that made a mark and helped change history. You can get early and ad-free episodes on the Grab Bag Patreon page.  DON'T FORGET ABOUT THE CRIMES OF THE CENTURIES BOOK!  Order today at www.centuriespod.com/book (https://www.centuriespod.com/book)! Follow us on Instagram and Twitter: @centuriespod Episode Sponsors: Home Chef. For a limited time, Home Chef is offering my listeners FIFTY PERCENT OFF and free shipping for your first box PLUS free dessert for life! Go to Homechef.com/COTC. Galatea. Right now, Galatea is offering our listeners an extra 25% off on top of an already-irresistibly-affordable subscription when you go to GALATEA.COM/COTC.

The Manhattan Project is talking about the One with Ross and Monica's Cousin, where Denise Richards guest star as "the cousin", and we are not talking about the Patty Duke Show.  The Rule of 3 was used well in this  episode- Chandler, Ross and Phoebe.  Critical Friends Theory: Rachel and Monica not being friends example 774 in the episode.  And, Joey gets a part where he needs... an extra part.  Please e-mail us at april5k@gmail.com https://seinfeldpodcast.libsyn.com/website www.patreon.com/wrightonnetwork  

What if your company had a digital brain that never forgot, always knew the answer, and could instantly tap the knowledge of your best engineers, even after they left? Superintelligence can feel like a hand‑wavy pipe‑dream— yet, as Misha Laskin argues, it becomes a tractable engineering problem once you scope it to the enterprise level. Former DeepMind researcher Laskin is betting on an oracle‑like AI that grasps every repo, Jira ticket and hallway aside as deeply as your principal engineer—and he's building it at Reflection AI.In this wide‑ranging conversation, Misha explains why coding is the fastest on‑ramp to superintelligence, how “organizational” beats “general” when real work is on the line, and why today's retrieval‑augmented generation (RAG) feels like “exploring a jungle with a flashlight.” He walks us through Asimov, Reflection's newly unveiled code‑research agent that fuses long‑context search, team‑wide memory and multi‑agent planning so developers spend less time spelunking for context and more time shipping.We also rewind his unlikely journey—from physics prodigy in a Manhattan‑Project desert town, to Berkeley's AI crucible, to leading RLHF for Google Gemini—before he left big‑lab comfort to chase a sharper vision of enterprise super‑intelligence. Along the way: the four breakthroughs that unlocked modern AI, why capital efficiency still matters in the GPU arms‑race, and how small teams can lure top talent away from nine‑figure offers.If you're curious about the next phase of AI agents, the future of developer tooling, or the gritty realities of scaling a frontier‑level startup—this episode is your blueprint.Reflection AIWebsite - https://reflection.aiLinkedIn - https://www.linkedin.com/company/reflectionaiMisha LaskinLinkedIn - https://www.linkedin.com/in/mishalaskinX/Twitter - https://x.com/mishalaskinFIRSTMARKWebsite - https://firstmark.comX/Twitter - https://twitter.com/FirstMarkCapMatt Turck (Managing Director)LinkedIn - https://www.linkedin.com/in/turck/X/Twitter - https://twitter.com/mattturck(00:00) Intro (01:42) Reflection AI: Company Origins and Mission (04:14) Making Superintelligence Concrete (06:04) Superintelligence vs. AGI: Why the Goalposts Moved (07:55) Organizational Superintelligence as an Oracle (12:05) Coding as the Shortcut: Hands, Legs & Brain for AI (16:00) Building the Context Engine (20:55) Capturing Tribal Knowledge in Organizations (26:31) Introducing Asimov: A Deep Code Research Agent (28:44) Team-Wide Memory: Preserving Institutional Knowledge (33:07) Multi-Agent Design for Deep Code Understanding (34:48) Data Retrieval and Integration in Asimov (38:13) Enterprise-Ready: VPC and On-Prem Deployments (39:41) Reinforcement Learning in Asimov's Development (41:04) Misha's Journey: From Physics to AI (42:06) Growing Up in a Science-Driven Desert Town (53:03) Building General Agents at DeepMind (56:57) Founding Reflection AI After DeepMind (58:54) Product-Driven Superintelligence: Why It Matters (01:02:22) The State of Autonomous Coding Agents (01:04:26) What's Next for Reflection AI

July 16, 1945. An atomic bomb is detonated in New Mexico, marking success in the Manhattan Project. This episode originally aired in 2024.Support the show! Join Into History for ad-free listening and more.History Daily is a co-production of Airship and Noiser.Go to HistoryDaily.com for more history, daily.See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

fWotD Episode 2994: Trinity (nuclear test) Welcome to featured Wiki of the Day, your daily dose of knowledge from Wikipedia's finest articles.The featured article for Wednesday, 16 July 2025, is Trinity (nuclear test).Trinity was the first detonation of a nuclear weapon, conducted by the United States Army at 5:29 a.m. MWT (11:29:21 GMT) on July 16, 1945, as part of the Manhattan Project. The test was of an implosion-design plutonium bomb, or "gadget", of the same design as the Fat Man bomb later detonated over Nagasaki, Japan, on August 9, 1945. Concerns about whether the complex Fat Man design would work led to a decision to conduct the first nuclear test. The code name "Trinity" was assigned by J. Robert Oppenheimer, the director of the Los Alamos Laboratory, possibly inspired by the poetry of John Donne.The test, both planned and directed by Kenneth Bainbridge, was conducted in the Jornada del Muerto desert about 35 miles (56 km) southeast of Socorro, New Mexico, on what was the Alamogordo Bombing and Gunnery Range (renamed the White Sands Proving Ground just before the test). The only structures originally in the immediate vicinity were the McDonald Ranch House and its ancillary buildings, which scientists used as a laboratory for testing bomb components. Fears of a fizzle prompted construction of "Jumbo", a steel containment vessel that could contain the plutonium, allowing it to be recovered; but ultimately Jumbo was not used in the test. On May 7, 1945, a rehearsal was conducted, during which 108 short tons (98 t) of high explosive spiked with radioactive isotopes was detonated.Some 425 people were present on the weekend of the Trinity test. In addition to Bainbridge and Oppenheimer, observers included Vannevar Bush, James Chadwick, James B. Conant, Thomas Farrell, Enrico Fermi, Hans Bethe, Richard Feynman, Isidor Isaac Rabi, Leslie Groves, Frank Oppenheimer, Geoffrey Taylor, Richard Tolman, Edward Teller, and John von Neumann. The Trinity bomb released the explosive energy of 25 kilotons of TNT (100 TJ) ± 2 kilotons of TNT (8.4 TJ), and a large cloud of fallout. Thousands of people lived closer to the test than would have been allowed under guidelines adopted for subsequent tests, but no one living near the test was evacuated before or afterward.The test site was declared a National Historic Landmark district in 1965 and listed on the National Register of Historic Places the following year.This recording reflects the Wikipedia text as of 00:34 UTC on Wednesday, 16 July 2025.For the full current version of the article, see Trinity (nuclear test) on Wikipedia.This podcast uses content from Wikipedia under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike License.Visit our archives at wikioftheday.com and subscribe to stay updated on new episodes.Follow us on Mastodon at @wikioftheday@masto.ai.Also check out Curmudgeon's Corner, a current events podcast.Until next time, I'm generative Ruth.

The Manhattan Project is here to talk about Professor Geller turning heads or so he thinks, Joey stealing awards and Monica wondering if her days of first flirt, fling, kiss and  early dating highs are over.  Do you have any favorite award show winners or moments?  Do you have any big award disappointments?  Let us know.  A.J. was happy when Julia Louis Dreyfus won for Seinfeld.  He was disappointed when He Got Game didn't get nominated for an Oscar.  He was also disappointed when Angela Bassett didn't win for What Love Got To Do With It. Contact us at the places below, please!  https://seinfeldpodcast.libsyn.com/website @april5k on most social media platforms www.patreon.com/wrightonnetwork Please rate us on iTunes   Thank you for listening to us.  

The expansion of the Radiation Exposure Compensation Act is a watershed moment for activists and an unusual example of political collaboration. Just Moms STL co-founders Dawn Chapman and Karen Nickel discuss what the expansion of RECA means for those sickened by Manhattan Project-era radioactive waste dumped in the St. Louis region, and STLPR politics reporter Jason Rosenbaum explains how Missouri arrived at this moment.

TO LAUNCH US ON A VON NEUMANN PROBE please consider supporting on Patreon: - patreon.com/nodumbquestions  NDQ EMAIL LIST - https://www.nodumbquestions.fm/email-list  STUFF IN THIS EPISODE: Francisco Pizarro Vasco Núñez de Balboa Hernán Cortés Sir Walter Raleigh Fountain of Youth Chief Tuscaloosa This Little Piggy Sailed to America Ossabaw Island Ossabaw Island Hog La Tienda John von Neumann von Neumann Machine Manhattan Project Self-replicating spacecraft Drake Equation Fermi Paradox Hart-Tipler conjecture Ecbatana Steven Curtis Chapman - Burn the Ships Anselm's Ontological Argument Berserker Hypothesis Berserker (novel series) by Fred Saberhagen Chiastic Structure Boardwalk Empire Horse kicks tree, farts on dogs and runs away CONNECT WITH NO DUMB QUESTIONS: Support No Dumb Questions on Patreon if that sounds good to you Discuss this episode here NDQ Subreddit Our podcast YouTube channel Our website is nodumbquestions.fm No Dumb Questions Twitter Matt's Twitter Destin's Twitter SUBSCRIBE LINKS: Subscribe on iTunes Subscribe on Android OUR YOUTUBE CHANNELS ARE ALSO FUN: Matt's YouTube Channel (The Ten Minute Bible Hour) Destin's YouTube Channel (Smarter Every Day)

5/8: The Spy Who Changed History: The Untold Story of How the Soviet Union Won the Race for America's Top Secrets by  Svetlana Lokhova (Author)   Format: Kindle Edition On a sunny September day in 1931, a Soviet spy walked down the gangplank of the luxury transatlantic liner SS Europa and into New York. Attracting no attention, Stanislav Shumovsky had completed his journey from Moscow to enrol at a top American university. He was concealed in a group of 65 Soviet students heading to prestigious academic institutions. But he was after far more than an excellent education. Recognising Russia was 100 years behind the encircling capitalist powers, Soviet leader Joseph Stalin had sent Shumovsky on a mission to acquire America's vital secrets to help close the USSR's yawning technology gap. The road to victory began in the classrooms and laboratories of MIT – Shumovsky's destination soon became the unwitting finishing school for elite Russian spies. The USSR first transformed itself into a military powerhouse able to confront and defeat Nazi Germany. Then in an extraordinary feat that astonished the West, in 1947 American ingenuity and innovation exfiltrated by Shumovsky made it possible to build and unveil the most advanced strategic bomber in the world. Following his lead, other MIT-trained Soviet spies helped acquire the secrets of the Manhattan Project. By 1949, Stalin's fleet of TU-4s, now equipped with atomic bombs could devastate the US on his command. Appropriately codenamed BLÉRIOT, Shumovsky was an aviation spy. Shumovsky's espionage was so successful that the USSR acquired every US aviation secret from his network of agents in factories and at top secret military research institutes. In this thrilling history, Svetlana Lokhova takes the reader on a journey through Stalin's most audacious intelligence operation. She pieces together every aspect of Shumovsky's life and character using information derived from American and Russian archives, exposing how even Shirley Temple and Franklin D. Roosevelt unwittingly advanced his schemes. 1935

6/8: The Spy Who Changed History: The Untold Story of How the Soviet Union Won the Race for America's Top Secrets by  Svetlana Lokhova (Author)   Format: Kindle Edition On a sunny September day in 1931, a Soviet spy walked down the gangplank of the luxury transatlantic liner SS Europa and into New York. Attracting no attention, Stanislav Shumovsky had completed his journey from Moscow to enrol at a top American university. He was concealed in a group of 65 Soviet students heading to prestigious academic institutions. But he was after far more than an excellent education. Recognising Russia was 100 years behind the encircling capitalist powers, Soviet leader Joseph Stalin had sent Shumovsky on a mission to acquire America's vital secrets to help close the USSR's yawning technology gap. The road to victory began in the classrooms and laboratories of MIT – Shumovsky's destination soon became the unwitting finishing school for elite Russian spies. The USSR first transformed itself into a military powerhouse able to confront and defeat Nazi Germany. Then in an extraordinary feat that astonished the West, in 1947 American ingenuity and innovation exfiltrated by Shumovsky made it possible to build and unveil the most advanced strategic bomber in the world. Following his lead, other MIT-trained Soviet spies helped acquire the secrets of the Manhattan Project. By 1949, Stalin's fleet of TU-4s, now equipped with atomic bombs could devastate the US on his command. Appropriately codenamed BLÉRIOT, Shumovsky was an aviation spy. Shumovsky's espionage was so successful that the USSR acquired every US aviation secret from his network of agents in factories and at top secret military research institutes. In this thrilling history, Svetlana Lokhova takes the reader on a journey through Stalin's most audacious intelligence operation. She pieces together every aspect of Shumovsky's life and character using information derived from American and Russian archives, exposing how even Shirley Temple and Franklin D. Roosevelt unwittingly advanced his schemes. 1931

7/8: The Spy Who Changed History: The Untold Story of How the Soviet Union Won the Race for America's Top Secrets by  Svetlana Lokhova (Author)   Format: Kindle Edition On a sunny September day in 1931, a Soviet spy walked down the gangplank of the luxury transatlantic liner SS Europa and into New York. Attracting no attention, Stanislav Shumovsky had completed his journey from Moscow to enrol at a top American university. He was concealed in a group of 65 Soviet students heading to prestigious academic institutions. But he was after far more than an excellent education. Recognising Russia was 100 years behind the encircling capitalist powers, Soviet leader Joseph Stalin had sent Shumovsky on a mission to acquire America's vital secrets to help close the USSR's yawning technology gap. The road to victory began in the classrooms and laboratories of MIT – Shumovsky's destination soon became the unwitting finishing school for elite Russian spies. The USSR first transformed itself into a military powerhouse able to confront and defeat Nazi Germany. Then in an extraordinary feat that astonished the West, in 1947 American ingenuity and innovation exfiltrated by Shumovsky made it possible to build and unveil the most advanced strategic bomber in the world. Following his lead, other MIT-trained Soviet spies helped acquire the secrets of the Manhattan Project. By 1949, Stalin's fleet of TU-4s, now equipped with atomic bombs could devastate the US on his command. Appropriately codenamed BLÉRIOT, Shumovsky was an aviation spy. Shumovsky's espionage was so successful that the USSR acquired every US aviation secret from his network of agents in factories and at top secret military research institutes. In this thrilling history, Svetlana Lokhova takes the reader on a journey through Stalin's most audacious intelligence operation. She pieces together every aspect of Shumovsky's life and character using information derived from American and Russian archives, exposing how even Shirley Temple and Franklin D. Roosevelt unwittingly advanced his schemes. 11937

8/8: The Spy Who Changed History: The Untold Story of How the Soviet Union Won the Race for America's Top Secrets by  Svetlana Lokhova (Author)   Format: Kindle Edition On a sunny September day in 1931, a Soviet spy walked down the gangplank of the luxury transatlantic liner SS Europa and into New York. Attracting no attention, Stanislav Shumovsky had completed his journey from Moscow to enrol at a top American university. He was concealed in a group of 65 Soviet students heading to prestigious academic institutions. But he was after far more than an excellent education. Recognising Russia was 100 years behind the encircling capitalist powers, Soviet leader Joseph Stalin had sent Shumovsky on a mission to acquire America's vital secrets to help close the USSR's yawning technology gap. The road to victory began in the classrooms and laboratories of MIT – Shumovsky's destination soon became the unwitting finishing school for elite Russian spies. The USSR first transformed itself into a military powerhouse able to confront and defeat Nazi Germany. Then in an extraordinary feat that astonished the West, in 1947 American ingenuity and innovation exfiltrated by Shumovsky made it possible to build and unveil the most advanced strategic bomber in the world. Following his lead, other MIT-trained Soviet spies helped acquire the secrets of the Manhattan Project. By 1949, Stalin's fleet of TU-4s, now equipped with atomic bombs could devastate the US on his command. Appropriately codenamed BLÉRIOT, Shumovsky was an aviation spy. Shumovsky's espionage was so successful that the USSR acquired every US aviation secret from his network of agents in factories and at top secret military research institutes. In this thrilling history, Svetlana Lokhova takes the reader on a journey through Stalin's most audacious intelligence operation. She pieces together every aspect of Shumovsky's life and character using information derived from American and Russian archives, exposing how even Shirley Temple and Franklin D. Roosevelt unwittingly advanced his schemes. 1945

SHOW SCHEDULE  6-30-25 GOOD EVENING. The show begins in Iran.. 1852 TEHRAN. CBS EYE ON THE WORLD WITH JOHN BATCHELOR FIRST HOUR 9:00-9:15 Iran: IAEA confirms damage but no conclusion. Bill Roggio, FDD. 9:15-9:30 Iran: Remains regional power. Bill Roggio, FDD 9:30-9:45 Ukraine: Low on air defense. John Hardie, Bill Roggio, FDD 9:45-10:00 NATO: Successes. John Hardie FDD SECOND HOUR 10:00-10:15 Taiwan: Assassination plot by wolf warriors. Steve Yates, Heritage. @gordongchang, Gatestone, Newsweek, The Hill 10:15-10:30 SpaceX: Costs of fails unknown. Douglas Messier, David Livingston 10:30-10:45 Trade: No doom. Just incorrect gloom. Alan Tonelson, @gordongchang, Gatestone, Newsweek, The Hill 10:45-11:00 Trade: No doom. Just incorrect gloom. Alan Tonelson, @gordongchang, Gatestone, Newsweek, The Hill continued THIRD HOUR 11:00-11:15 5/8: The Spy Who Changed History: The Untold Story of How the Soviet Union Won the Race for America's Top Secrets by Svetlana Lokhova (Author) Format: Kindle Edition On a sunny September day in 1931, a Soviet spy walked down the gangplank of the luxury transatlantic liner SS Europa and into New York. Attracting no attention, Stanislav Shumovsky had completed his journey from Moscow to enroll at a top American university. He was concealed in a group of 65 Soviet students heading to prestigious academic institutions. But he was after far more than an excellent education. Recognizing Russia was 100 years behind the encircling capitalist powers, Soviet leader Joseph Stalin had sent Shumovsky on a mission to acquire America's vital secrets to help close the USSR's yawning technology gap. The road to victory began in the classrooms and laboratories of MIT – Shumovsky's destination soon became the unwitting finishing school for elite Russian spies. The USSR first transformed itself into a military powerhouse able to confront and defeat Nazi Germany. Then in an extraordinary feat that astonished the West, in 1947 American ingenuity and innovation exfiltrated by Shumovsky made it possible to build and unveil the most advanced strategic bomber in the world. Following his lead, other MIT-trained Soviet spies helped acquire the secrets of the Manhattan Project. By 1949, Stalin's fleet of TU-4s, now equipped with atomic bombs could devastate the US on his command. Appropriately codenamed BLÉRIOT, Shumovsky was an aviation spy. Shumovsky's espionage was so successful that the USSR acquired every US aviation secret from his network of agents in factories and at top secret military research institutes. In this thrilling history, Svetlana Lokhova takes the reader on a journey through Stalin's most audacious intelligence operation. She pieces together every aspect of Shumovsky's life and character using information derived from American and Russian archives, exposing how even Shirley Temple and Franklin D. Roosevelt unwittingly advanced his schemes. 11:15-11:30 6/8: The Spy Who Changed History: The Untold Story of How the Soviet Union Won the Race for America's Top Secrets by Svetlana Lokhova (Author) Format: Kindle Edition 11:30-11:45 7/8: The Spy Who Changed History: The Untold Story of How the Soviet Union Won the Race for America's Top Secrets by Svetlana Lokhova (Author) Format: Kindle Edition 11:45-12:00 8/8: The Spy Who Changed History: The Untold Story of How the Soviet Union Won the Race for America's Top Secrets by Svetlana Lokhova (Author) Format: Kindle Edition FOURTH HOUR 12:00-12:15 Iran: Arrests, executions, burial. Ahmad Sharawi, Bill Roggio, FDD 12:15-12:30 Gaza: Egypt and Jordan to supervise. Ahmad Sharawi, Bill Roggio, FDD 12:30-12:45 #NewWorldReport: Chile votes. Joseph Humire @jmhumire @securefreesoc. Ernesto Araujo, former Foreign Minister Republic of Brazil. #newworldreporthumire, Alejandro Pena, Hungarian Center for Fundamental Rights. 12:45-1:00 AM #NewWorldReport: China in the Americas. Chile votes. Joseph Humire @jmhumire @securefreesoc. Ernesto Araujo, former Foreign Minister Republic of Brazil. #newworldreporthumire, Alejandro Pena, Hungarian Center for Fundamental Rights. Continued

Jim talks with Thomas Schindler about heliogenic civilization as a vision for a regenerative future. They discuss the current multipolar trap shitshow of global civilization, M3 money supply & GDP growth requirements, the doubling of energy demand, exit to planet as an alternative to traditional business exits, biomimicry & biological approaches to manufacturing, solar energy as a fusion reactor, nature's material production vs human industrial production, construction systems using earth blocks & natural materials, bioregional self-sufficiency, feminine scaling vs traditional growth models, the Oslo Project as an inverse Manhattan Project, deep ecology & Arne Næss's philosophy, governance structures, education systems as symptoms of industry, coordination among farmers in Kenya, project governance & preventing OpenAI syndrome, Bernard Lietaer's alternative currency experiment, biological computing possibilities, solar energy & hydrogen electrolysis, ocean floor mining & environmental impacts, copper vs aluminum for electrical transmission, material constraints on renewable energy transition, and much more. Episode Transcript Thomas Schindler's website In service of Life. | Thomas Schindler's Substack Project MIRACLE Auroville Earth Institute Carbon Crusher Bind-X Thomas is co-founder of delodi.net, a mission-driven software studio and the engine behind the not-for-profit initiatives MOTHERLAND, GITA, IRM, and Project MIRACLE. The throughline of his work lies in reimagining how societies generate value—shifting from extractive models to regenerative, life-centered systems that empower local communities. He's particularly focused on helogenic civilization frameworks, bio-regional material commons, infrastructures of generosity, systemic change methodologies, and the intersections of technology, culture, and ecology. Motivated by the conviction that aligning collective creativity, open protocols, and local agency is essential to address today's ecological and existential challenges, he writes, speaks, convenes and assemblies to catalyze these conversations and collaborations.

In this episode of NucleCast, host Adam Lowther welcomes retired Lieutenant General Jim Dawkins, now Executive Vice President and COO of Savannah River Nuclear Solutions. Together, they explore the pivotal role of the Savannah River Site in America's nuclear enterprise—from its origins in the Manhattan Project to its current missions in tritium production and plutonium pit manufacturing.Dawkins shares insights into the site's transformation from a Cold War-era bomb plant to a modern hub for national security and environmental stewardship. He breaks down the complexities of repurposing the MOX facility into the Savannah River Plutonium Processing Facility (SRPPF), the only U.S. site slated to produce over 50 plutonium pits per year. The conversation also dives into the challenges of maintaining the nation's sole tritium facility, the importance of skilled trades, and the need for sustained congressional support.James (Jim) Dawkins is the Executive Vice President and Chief Operations Officer of Savannah River Nuclear Solutions, LLC (SRNS). He is responsible for safe execution of all management and operating functions for National Nuclear Security Administration (NNSA) and Department of Energy (DOE) Environmental Management Operations at the DOE's Savannah River Site, including the Site's tritium operations, the Savannah River Plutonium Processing Facility, the Site's nuclear material operations, and landlord services.Before joining SRNS, he served as the Vice President of Nuclear Operations at HII's Nuclear and Environmental Services Group where he provided guidance, direction and support to HII's management and operations project teams at NNSA national laboratories and DOE legacy cleanup sites. He also served on several NNSA laboratory advisory committees and boards. Dawkins served in the Air Force for 34 years in a variety of operational and executive staff assignments, retiring as a Lieutenant General. He was an Air Force pilot with combat missionsin fighter, reconnaissance and bomber aircraft. His last duty assignment was as lead of the Air Force's nuclear weapons enterprise as the Air Force Deputy Chief of Staff for Strategic Deterrence and Nuclear Integration (AF/A10). During this assignment, he collaborated closely with NNSA Headquarters and the design and production agencies, approved and accepted the B61-12 into the Air Force stockpile and brokered requirements for the Air Force's next generation of nuclear weapons, the W80-4 and W87-1.Dawkins has executive experience gained within the Department of Defense, DOE (NNSA Principal Assistant Deputy Administrator for Military Application) and the National Security Council as Director of Strategic Capabilities Policy, where he developed nuclear weapons policy for thepresident. He has forged national security policy for three presidents and has led organizations of over 21,000 personnel.Socials:Follow on Twitter at @NucleCastFollow on LinkedIn: https://linkedin.com/company/nuclecastpodcastSubscribe RSS Feed: https://rss.com/podcasts/nuclecast-podcast/Rate: https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/nuclecast/id1644921278Email comments and topic/guest suggestions to NucleCast@anwadeter.org

On May 19, 1945, eleven days after the surrender of Nazi Germany in Europe, a U-boat was escorted into Portsmouth Naval Yard, New Hampshire. News reporters covering the surrender of U-234 were ordered, contrary to all previous and later U-boat surrender procedures, to keep their distance from crew members and passengers of U-234, on threat of being shot by the attending Marine guards. Why the tight security? Buried in the nose of the specially-built mammoth boat, sealed in cylinders “lined with gold,” was 1,120 pounds of enriched uranium labeled “U235”the fissile material from which atom bombs are made. Critical Mass documents how these Nazi bomb components were then used by the Manhattan Project to complete both the uranium bomb dropped on Hiroshima and the plutonium bomb dropped on Nagasaki, to defeat the Japanese and win World War Two and global domination in the modern age.https://amzn.to/3TVIyhnBecome a supporter of this podcast: https://www.spreaker.com/podcast/the-opperman-report--1198501/support.

On this week's episode, Megan talks about M3GAN 2.0 (2:58), the sci-fi action sequel which sees the return of the murderous robotic doll, directed by Gerard Johnstone and starring Allison Williams, Violet McGraw, and Jenna Davis. Flawed yet intermittently fun, it's inferior to the sharply crafted and delightful original horror film. Then, Megan talks about RENT FREE (17:17), Fernando Andrés's indie comedy about two queer best friends (Jacob Roberts, David Treviño) attempting to live for a year without paying rent in Austin, Texas. Lastly, Dave and Megan discuss MY MOM JAYNE (29:01), Mariska Hargitay's emotional documentary about her mother, actress and icon Jayne Mansfield, as she explores her grief, delves into her mother's life, and reconciles her mother's image and legacy. It's a compelling and vulnerable film that we both recommend. And on our Patreon bonus episode, we discuss 1986 sci-fi thriller THE MANHATTAN PROJECT, starring John Lithgow, Christopher Collet, and Cynthia Nixon!

1/8: The Spy Who Changed History: The Untold Story of How the Soviet Union Won the Race for America's Top Secrets by  Svetlana Lokhova (Author)   Format: Kindle EditioN 1928 On a sunny September day in 1931, a Soviet spy walked down the gangplank of the luxury transatlantic liner SS Europa and into New York. Attracting no attention, Stanislav Shumovsky had completed his journey from Moscow to enrol at a top American university. He was concealed in a group of 65 Soviet students heading to prestigious academic institutions. But he was after far more than an excellent education. Recognising Russia was 100 years behind the encircling capitalist powers, Soviet leader Joseph Stalin had sent Shumovsky on a mission to acquire America's vital secrets to help close the USSR's yawning technology gap. The road to victory began in the classrooms and laboratories of MIT – Shumovsky's destination soon became the unwitting finishing school for elite Russian spies. The USSR first transformed itself into a military powerhouse able to confront and defeat Nazi Germany. Then in an extraordinary feat that astonished the West, in 1947 American ingenuity and innovation exfiltrated by Shumovsky made it possible to build and unveil the most advanced strategic bomber in the world. Following his lead, other MIT-trained Soviet spies helped acquire the secrets of the Manhattan Project. By 1949, Stalin's fleet of TU-4s, now equipped with atomic bombs could devastate the US on his command. Appropriately codenamed BLÉRIOT, Shumovsky was an aviation spy. Shumovsky's espionage was so successful that the USSR acquired every US aviation secret from his network of agents in factories and at top secret military research institutes. In this thrilling history, Svetlana Lokhova takes the reader on a journey through Stalin's most audacious intelligence operation. She pieces together every aspect of Shumovsky's life and character using information derived from American and Russian archives, exposing how even Shirley Temple and Franklin D. Roosevelt unwittingly advanced his schemes

2/8: The Spy Who Changed History: The Untold Story of How the Soviet Union Won the Race for America's Top Secrets by  Svetlana Lokhova (Author)   Format: Kindle Edition 1929 On a sunny September day in 1931, a Soviet spy walked down the gangplank of the luxury transatlantic liner SS Europa and into New York. Attracting no attention, Stanislav Shumovsky had completed his journey from Moscow to enrol at a top American university. He was concealed in a group of 65 Soviet students heading to prestigious academic institutions. But he was after far more than an excellent education. Recognising Russia was 100 years behind the encircling capitalist powers, Soviet leader Joseph Stalin had sent Shumovsky on a mission to acquire America's vital secrets to help close the USSR's yawning technology gap. The road to victory began in the classrooms and laboratories of MIT – Shumovsky's destination soon became the unwitting finishing school for elite Russian spies. The USSR first transformed itself into a military powerhouse able to confront and defeat Nazi Germany. Then in an extraordinary feat that astonished the West, in 1947 American ingenuity and innovation exfiltrated by Shumovsky made it possible to build and unveil the most advanced strategic bomber in the world. Following his lead, other MIT-trained Soviet spies helped acquire the secrets of the Manhattan Project. By 1949, Stalin's fleet of TU-4s, now equipped with atomic bombs could devastate the US on his command. Appropriately codenamed BLÉRIOT, Shumovsky was an aviation spy. Shumovsky's espionage was so successful that the USSR acquired every US aviation secret from his network of agents in factories and at top secret military research institutes. In this thrilling history, Svetlana Lokhova takes the reader on a journey through Stalin's most audacious intelligence operation. She pieces together every aspect of Shumovsky's life and character using information derived from American and Russian archives, exposing how even Shirley Temple and Franklin D. Roosevelt unwittingly advanced his schemes

3/8: The Spy Who Changed History: The Untold Story of How the Soviet Union Won the Race for America's Top Secrets by  Svetlana Lokhova (Author)   Format: Kindle Edition 1931 On a sunny September day in 1931, a Soviet spy walked down the gangplank of the luxury transatlantic liner SS Europa and into New York. Attracting no attention, Stanislav Shumovsky had completed his journey from Moscow to enrol at a top American university. He was concealed in a group of 65 Soviet students heading to prestigious academic institutions. But he was after far more than an excellent education. Recognising Russia was 100 years behind the encircling capitalist powers, Soviet leader Joseph Stalin had sent Shumovsky on a mission to acquire America's vital secrets to help close the USSR's yawning technology gap. The road to victory began in the classrooms and laboratories of MIT – Shumovsky's destination soon became the unwitting finishing school for elite Russian spies. The USSR first transformed itself into a military powerhouse able to confront and defeat Nazi Germany. Then in an extraordinary feat that astonished the West, in 1947 American ingenuity and innovation exfiltrated by Shumovsky made it possible to build and unveil the most advanced strategic bomber in the world. Following his lead, other MIT-trained Soviet spies helped acquire the secrets of the Manhattan Project. By 1949, Stalin's fleet of TU-4s, now equipped with atomic bombs could devastate the US on his command. Appropriately codenamed BLÉRIOT, Shumovsky was an aviation spy. Shumovsky's espionage was so successful that the USSR acquired every US aviation secret from his network of agents in factories and at top secret military research institutes. In this thrilling history, Svetlana Lokhova takes the reader on a journey through Stalin's most audacious intelligence operation. She pieces together every aspect of Shumovsky's life and character using information derived from American and Russian archives, exposing how even Shirley Temple and Franklin D. Roosevelt unwittingly advanced his schemes

4/8: The Spy Who Changed History: The Untold Story of How the Soviet Union Won the Race for America's Top Secrets by  Svetlana Lokhova (Author)   Format: Kindle Edition 1934 On a sunny September day in 1931, a Soviet spy walked down the gangplank of the luxury transatlantic liner SS Europa and into New York. Attracting no attention, Stanislav Shumovsky had completed his journey from Moscow to enrol at a top American university. He was concealed in a group of 65 Soviet students heading to prestigious academic institutions. But he was after far more than an excellent education. Recognising Russia was 100 years behind the encircling capitalist powers, Soviet leader Joseph Stalin had sent Shumovsky on a mission to acquire America's vital secrets to help close the USSR's yawning technology gap. The road to victory began in the classrooms and laboratories of MIT – Shumovsky's destination soon became the unwitting finishing school for elite Russian spies. The USSR first transformed itself into a military powerhouse able to confront and defeat Nazi Germany. Then in an extraordinary feat that astonished the West, in 1947 American ingenuity and innovation exfiltrated by Shumovsky made it possible to build and unveil the most advanced strategic bomber in the world. Following his lead, other MIT-trained Soviet spies helped acquire the secrets of the Manhattan Project. By 1949, Stalin's fleet of TU-4s, now equipped with atomic bombs could devastate the US on his command. Appropriately codenamed BLÉRIOT, Shumovsky was an aviation spy. Shumovsky's espionage was so successful that the USSR acquired every US aviation secret from his network of agents in factories and at top secret military research institutes. In this thrilling history, Svetlana Lokhova takes the reader on a journey through Stalin's most audacious intelligence operation. She pieces together every aspect of Shumovsky's life and character using information derived from American and Russian archives, exposing how even Shirley Temple and Franklin D. Roosevelt unwittingly advanced his schemes

We connect with Scorpio Gold CEO, Zayn Kalyan, for an update from the company's Manhattan Project in Nevada. The company has published final assays from the last campaign which showed encouraging mineralization in a gap area of the project originally thought to be barren. Zayn also walks listeners through the strategy for the next campaign now that the financing has closed and the company is capitalized to continue its work on the ground.

SHOW SCHEDULE 25 JUNE 2025 GOOD EVENING. The show begins in Iran over the Fordow suspect nuclear weapon tunnels that have as yet unknown certain fate... 1879 TEHRAN CBS EYE ON THE WORLD WITH JOHN BATCHELOR FIRST HOUR 9:00-9:15 #Iran: BDA low probability. Colonel Jeff McCausland, USA (Retired) @mccauslj @cbsnews @dickinsoncol 9:15-9:30 NATO: #Ukraine: 5% of GDP is the goal. Colonel Jeff McCausland, USA (Retired) @mccauslj @cbsnews @dickinsoncol 9:30-9:45 Tariffs: Cannot delegate the delegated. Rob Natelson, Civitas Institute. 9:45-10:00 Russia: Losing money with oil and gas. Michael Bernstam, Hoover SECOND HOUR 10:00-10:15 PRC: What did PLA learn from the B-2 mission? Blaine Holt Gordon Chang 10:15-10:30 PRC: Oil reserves? Andrew Collier Gordon Chang 10:30-10:45 PRC: Xi fading? Charles Burton Gordon Chang 10:45-11:00 PRC: PLA Navy carriers and airwings ready 2027. James Fanell Gordon Chang THIRD HOUR 11:00-11:15 1/8: The Spy Who Changed History: The Untold Story of How the Soviet Union Won the Race for America's Top Secrets by Svetlana Lokhova (Author) Format: Kindle Edition On a sunny September day in 1931, a Soviet spy walked down the gangplank of the luxury transatlantic liner SS Europa and into New York. Attracting no attention, Stanislav Shumovsky had completed his journey from Moscow to enroll at a top American university. He was concealed in a group of 65 Soviet students heading to prestigious academic institutions. But he was after far more than an excellent education. Recognizing Russia was 100 years behind the encircling capitalist powers, Soviet leader Joseph Stalin had sent Shumovsky on a mission to acquire America's vital secrets to help close the USSR's yawning technology gap. The road to victory began in the classrooms and laboratories of MIT – Shumovsky's destination soon became the unwitting finishing school for elite Russian spies. The USSR first transformed itself into a military powerhouse able to confront and defeat Nazi Germany. Then in an extraordinary feat that astonished the West, in 1947 American ingenuity and innovation exfiltrated by Shumovsky made it possible to build and unveil the most advanced strategic bomber in the world. Following his lead, other MIT-trained Soviet spies helped acquire the secrets of the Manhattan Project. By 1949, Stalin's fleet of TU-4s, now equipped with atomic bombs could devastate the US on his command. Appropriately codenamed BLÉRIOT, Shumovsky was an aviation spy. Shumovsky's espionage was so successful that the USSR acquired every US aviation secret from his network of agents in factories and at top secret military research institutes. In this thrilling history, Svetlana Lokhova takes the reader on a journey through Stalin's most audacious intelligence operation. She pieces together every aspect of Shumovsky's life and character using information derived from American and Russian archives, exposing how even Shirley Temple and Franklin D. Roosevelt unwittingly advanced his schemes. 11:15-11:30 2/8: The Spy Who Changed History: The Untold Story of How the Soviet Union Won the Race for America's Top Secrets by Svetlana Lokhova (Author) Format: Kindle Edition 11:30-11:45 3/8: The Spy Who Changed History: The Untold Story of How the Soviet Union Won the Race for America's Top Secrets by Svetlana Lokhova (Author) Format: Kindle Edition 11:45-12:00 4/8: The Spy Who Changed History: The Untold Story of How the Soviet Union Won the Race for America's Top Secrets by Svetlana Lokhova (Author) Format: Kindle Edition FOURTH HOUR 12:00-12:15 France: Heat wave and country lanes. Simon Constable, Occitanie. 12:15-12:30 NATO: On Starmer struggles to find the money for defense pledge of 5%. Simon Constable 12:30-12:45 NASA: Looking for private funding for missions. Bob Zimmerman behindtheblack.com 12:45-1:00 AM Big Astronomy Key corrections made: Added proper time formatting with colons "BATCHELORFIRST" → "BATCHELOR" (separated) "enrol" → "enroll" (American spelling) "Recognising" → "Recognizing" (American spelling) "NÅSÅ" → "NASA" "PLADGE" → "pledge" "aM" → "AM" Applied proper sentence case throughout Fixed spacing and formatting for readability

We're here! It's race week for the Western States 100. This episode talks through how we're feeling before the moonshot. Hopefully there are helpful similarities to all of the big, scary things in your lives!We also break down a new study that feels like the Manhattan Project of sports science, testing "replicability" in the field. You know it's serious when there are 99 authors! It found low replicability rates, particularly related to effect size, with massive implications for how we think about interpreting research.Finally, we answer a question about building belief in life. Thank you so much for being here along the journey! A year ago, this would have seemed unthinkable. But with the love and support of so many people lifting us up, here's what we've learned in that time:All big scary goals are unthinkable before they happen.Training is the test, and racing is the celebration. Time to celebrate! “Tell me, what is it you plan to do with your one wild and precious life.” -Mary Oliver (Ollie's namesake)BELIEVE.WILDLY.PRECIOUSLY.-David and MeganFollow Huzzah for scholarship details and more! https://www.instagram.com/thehuzzahhub/Click "Claim Reward" for free credit at The Feed here: thefeed.com/swap Check out the least expensive carb mix on the market from TheFeedLab: https://thefeed.com/products/the-feed-lab-high-carb-drink-mixBuy Janji's amazing gear: https://janji.com/ (code "SWAP")For weekly bonus podcasts, articles, and videos: patreon.com/swap

The Manhattan Project was the codename for the US government's top secret programme to develop the first atomic bomb. At the height of World War Two, America's top scientists - such as Dr Robert Oppenheimer - raced against Nazi Germany to harness the power of nuclear fission, and ultimately end the war. But what is the story of the other scientists, soldiers and civilians who brought about the birth of the A-bomb? What role did Albert Einstein play in the project? And what were the consequences when the bomb was finally used? This is a Short History Of The Manhattan Project. A Noiser Production, written by Jo Furniss. With thanks to Dr Cameron Reed, a physicist, and the author of ‘Manhattan Project, The Story Of The Century.' Get every episode of Short History Of a week early with Noiser+. You'll also get ad-free listening, bonus material, and early access to shows across the Noiser network. Click the Noiser+ banner to get started. Or, if you're on Spotify or Android, go to noiser.com/subscriptions. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

The race to develop ever-more-powerful AI is creating an unstable dynamic. It could lead us toward either dystopian centralized control or uncontrollable chaos. But there's a third option: a narrow path where technological power is matched with responsibility at every step.Sam Hammond is the chief economist at the Foundation for American Innovation. He brings a different perspective to this challenge than we do at CHT. Though he approaches AI from an innovation-first standpoint, we share a common mission on the biggest challenge facing humanity: finding and navigating this narrow path.This episode dives deep into the challenges ahead: How will AI reshape our institutions? Is complete surveillance inevitable, or can we build guardrails around it? Can our 19th-century government structures adapt fast enough, or will they be replaced by a faster moving private sector? And perhaps most importantly: how do we solve the coordination problems that could determine whether we build AI as a tool to empower humanity or as a superintelligence that we can't control?We're in the final window of choice before AI becomes fully entangled with our economy and society. This conversation explores how we might still get this right.Your Undivided Attention is produced by the Center for Humane Technology. Follow us on X: @HumaneTech_. You can find a full transcript, key takeaways, and much more on our Substack.RECOMMENDED MEDIA Tristan's TED talk on the Narrow PathSam's 95 Theses on AISam's proposal for a Manhattan Project for AI SafetySam's series on AI and LeviathanThe Narrow Corridor: States, Societies, and the Fate of Liberty by Daron Acemoglu and James RobinsonDario Amodei's Machines of Loving Grace essay.Bourgeois Dignity: Why Economics Can't Explain the Modern World by Deirdre McCloskeyThe Paradox of Libertarianism by Tyler CowenDwarkesh Patel's interview with Kevin Roberts at the FAI's annual conferenceFurther reading on surveillance with 6GRECOMMENDED YUA EPISODESAGI Beyond the Buzz: What Is It, and Are We Ready?The Self-Preserving Machine: Why AI Learns to Deceive The Tech-God Complex: Why We Need to be Skeptics Decoding Our DNA: How AI Supercharges Medical Breakthroughs and Biological Threats with Kevin EsveltCORRECTIONSSam referenced a blog post titled “The Libertarian Paradox” by Tyler Cowen. The actual title is the “Paradox of Libertarianism.” Sam also referenced a blog post titled “The Collapse of Complex Societies” by Eli Dourado. The actual title is “A beginner's guide to sociopolitical collapse.”

Back in 1832, a secret society was born on the Yale campus called Skull and Bones. Over the centuries, this fraternal order was said to have a hand in everything from the Manhattan Project to sparking WWII. And since major political players and successful businessmen have been bred from this organization – even today people wonder, how much global influence does the Skull and Bones actually have?Listen to CONSPIRACY: The Illuminati here, or wherever you listen to podcasts! For a full list of sources, please visit: sosupernaturalpodcast.com/conspiracy-skull-and-bones So Supernatural is an audiochuck and Crime House production. Find us on social!Instagram: @sosupernatualpodTwitter: @_sosupernaturalFacebook: /sosupernaturalpod

My interview with Mariah starts at about 25 mins  Stand Up is a daily podcast that I book,host,edit, post and promote new episodes with brilliant guests every day. Please subscribe now for as little as 5$ and gain access to a community of over 700 awesome, curious, kind, funny, brilliant, generous souls Check out StandUpwithPete.com to learn more Mariah Blake is an investigative journalist whose writing has appeared in The New York Times, The Atlantic, Mother Jones, The New Republic, and other publications. She was a Murrey Marder Nieman Fellow in Watchdog Journalism at Harvard University. Get her new book!  They Poisoned the World Life and Death in the Age of Forever Chemicals “Riveting . . . Blake's deft chronicle of one of the greatest moral scandals of our time [is] a book that none of us can afford to miss.”—The Washington Post A gripping investigation of the chemical industry's decades-long campaign to hide the dangers of forever chemicals, told through the story of a small town on the frontlines of an epic public health crisis. In 2014, after losing several friends and relatives to cancer, an unassuming insurance underwriter in Hoosick Falls, New York, began to suspect that the local water supply was polluted. When he tested his tap water, he discovered dangerous levels of forever chemicals. This set off a chain of events that led to 100 million Americans learning their drinking water was tainted. Although the discovery came as a shock to most, the U.S. government and the manufacturers of these toxic chemicals—used in everything from lipstick and cookware to children's clothing—had known about their hazards for decades. In They Poisoned the World, investigative journalist Mariah Blake tells the astonishing story of this cover-up, tracing its roots back to the Manhattan Project and through the postwar years, as industry scientists discovered that these chemicals refused to break down and were saturating the blood of virtually every human being. By the 1980s, manufacturers were secretly testing their workers and finding links to birth defects, cancer, and other serious diseases. At every step, the industry's deceptions were aided by our government's appallingly lax regulatory system—a system that has made us all guinea pigs in a vast, uncontrolled chemistry experiment. Drawing on years of on-the-ground reporting and tens of thousands of documents, Blake interweaves the secret history of forever chemicals with the moving story of how a lone village took on the chemical giants—and won. From the beloved local doctor to the young mother who took her fight all the way to the nation's capital, citizen activists in Hoosick Falls and beyond have ignited the most powerful grassroots environmental movement since Silent Spring. Humane and revelatory, this book will provoke outrage—and hopefully inspire the change we need to protect the health of every American for generations to come. Join us Monday's and Thursday's at 8EST for our Bi-Weekly Happy Hour Hangout!  Pete on Blue Sky Pete on Threads Pete on Tik Tok Pete on YouTube  Pete on Twitter Pete On Instagram Pete Personal FB page Stand Up with Pete FB page All things Jon Carroll  Follow and Support Pete Coe Buy Ava's Art  Hire DJ Monzyk to build your website or help you with Marketing

For decades, kids in St. Louis County caught crawdads in Coldwater Creek, made mudpies, went swimming -- and were exposed to nuclear waste. Hear the story of how St. Louis became a dumping ground for radioactive waste generated by the Manhattan Project.