Meeting Gobachev by a German is burdened by History. The Nazi invasion left Russia a devastated country with some 25 million dead. Mikhail Gorbachev witnessed the war as an adolescent. Meeting Gorbachev, Werner Herzog reporting, Sky Documentaries 2020
He was 87 years now … [born] 1931 as the son of peasants … All of his family has been laid to rest … He lived much of his time with his maternal grandparents who treated him with tenderness. ibid.
‘I entered politics in my final year of school. That’s when I joined the communist party.’ ibid. Gorbachev
‘He proposed, as we all remember, Perestroika and Glasnost. He really believed that he could reform communism.’ ibid. Lech Walesa
‘The proposals to end the Cold War first came from the Soviet Union.’ ibid. Gorbachev
‘I still believe we need to keep moving forward, and rid the world of nuclear weapons – just as Reagan and I proposed.’ ibid.
‘We were able to eliminate an entire class of nuclear weapons … I believe we can resume our cooperation and nuclear disarmament.’ ibid.
‘Some people were in a rush. They wanted to seize power and they had plans of their own.’ ibid.
This is the story of the first ever use of a weapon of mass destruction. The target was an empire with its own secret weapon: suicide bomber. On 6th August 1945 a bomb unlike any other fell from the skies above Hiroshima. The bomb was designed by some of the world’s finest scientists. Using it was one of the most momentous political decisions ever made. Hiroshima, BBC 2020
The entire city of Hiroshima was annihilated in just a few seconds. ibid.
The force of the explosion was estimated to be the equivalent of 67 million sticks of dynamite. ibid.
The bomb left San Francisco on board the USS Indianapolis two hours after the successful test in New Mexico. ibid.
A hidden world of classified nuclear facilities and secret cities built inside America. 400,000 people were part of this world. But only a handful really knew the truth. It took up half a million acres of land, saw the construction of the largest building in the world, and cost billions of dollars. All for one purpose: to bring an end to the Second World War by building the world’s first atomic bomb … The lost world of the Manhattan Project. Lost Worlds: Secret A Bomb Factories, History 2007
In 1941 Oak Ridge, Tennessee, was still a remote farming area. Within two years according to classified plans and maps it had been transformed into a secret city. It was going to be home to one of the biggest secrets in the Second World War. The US government pretended it didn’t exist. Because this was part of Project X: the Manhattan Project, the race to build the first atomic bomb. ibid.
On a remote stretch of the Somerset coast an army of 5,000 engineers and workers is embarking on the largest construction project in Europe. Their challenge: to build the UK’s first new nuclear power station for three decades: Hinkley Point C. The new power station costing more than £22 billion will have two of the most advanced nuclear reactors in the world. And generate enough electricity to power an average of six million homes. Building a nuclear power station is the pinnacle of modern engineering. Building Britain’s Biggest Nuclear Power Station I, BBC 2021
At its heart will set two uranium-fuelled nuclear reactors; they will generate 3.2 gigawatts of electricity, enough to provide 7% of the UK’s power … Hinkley Point C should generate electricity for sixty years. ibid.
It’s just before Christmas 2019 and the team is more than three years into Hinkley Point C’s ten-year build. The first stage – to lay the station’s mammoth concrete foundations – is complete. Now the team is gearing up to work on the next phase – constructing the station’s storm-proof flood defence system, and the buildings that will house the critical core of the plant. Building Britain’s Biggest Nuclear Power Station II
Since this deal was signed, the cost of these fixed-price agreements for other low-carbon sources of electricity such as wind and solar have fallen sharply, with some recent contracts fixed at around half the cost of Hinkley’s. ibid.
‘It does now seem likely that some time in the last couple of days there has been perhaps the worst accident in the short history of the world’s nuclear power industry.’ Chernobyl: The Lost Tapes, UK news, Sky Documentaries 2022
Those who survived the disaster were silenced, and the film footage hidden. ibid.
‘The Chernobyl Nuclear Power Station is in all respects the leader among nuclear power stations being built. First, it leads in the speed of launching new power-generating units.’ ibid. Soviet information film
Everyone believed our reactors simply could not explode. ibid.
‘People enjoyed life there. We wanted for nothing.’ ibid. resident
‘We had to run over the unit, looking for the injured. The conditions were absolutely horrifying. There was fire, smoke, pieces of construction hanging down, hot vapour, extreme radiation.’ ibid.
36 hours had passed. For 36 hours, people had been inhaling contaminated air. After the announcement of the evacuation 2,200 buses came to Pripyat and Chernobyl. The people were told, ‘Don’t worry.’ ibid.
‘Right after the [helicopter] flights were started, getting a metallic taste and a constant scratching in the throat. It was immediately noticeable.’ ibid. flyer
The explosion at Chernobyl caused a toxic nuclear mess the likes of which the world had never seen before. An eruption of thick nuclear material had poured out over 1,000 square kilometres. ibid. Oleksiy Breus, Chernobyl engineer
‘We calculated the explosion was equivalent to 400 nuclear bombs dropped on Hiroshima and Nagasaki.’ ibid.
‘Sooner or later each of our bodies showed signs. We all went through it – vomiting, coughing, extreme exhaustion. Some guys couldn’t get out of bed from fatigue by the second day. We called the local medical instructor. He gave them some pills, injections, something to drink. The level of radiation accumulation was strictly concealed. People worked till they fell from their feet … about 80% of the liquidators would die.’ ibid.
This place and these women have one heck of a history. 40 years ago these three Welsh sisters [Brinkworths] were making a real ruckus here. Hitting headlines around the globe. Taking on Reagan, Thatcher and anyone else who got in their way. This is the story of the housewives from the Rhonda who risked it all to change the world. Mothers, Missiles and the American President, BBC 2022
The 1986 Chernobyl disaster turned 1,000 square miles of Ukraine into a wasteland. The Chernobyl Disaster: Meltdown, Channel 5 2022
Two miles from Chernobyl, the city of Pripyat, once home to 50,00 people, lies in ruins. A 1,000-mile exclusion zone has restricted access to the site. ibid.
Chernobyl is decades in the making. It began when the emerging Soviet Union’s nuclear power programme threatened the world. A Soviet dream that became a nightmare. ibid.
Engineers will switch off all of the pumps that cool the reactor to test the backup system. ibid.
Xenon gas is poisoning the reactor … Even before the test starts they’re struggling to control the reactor. ibid.
A disaster officials tried to cover up. As a brave few battled to stop radiation spreading across the globe. The Chernobyl Disaster II: Firestorm
They are following orders to get water into the reactor’s system to prevent meltdown. But the electrics have failed so they are doing the job manually. ibid.
The core of the reactor is smouldering, releasing large amounts of radioactive material into the atmosphere. Helicopters battle to stop this deadly radiation escaping from the molten core. The Chernobyl Disaster III: Fallout
The sarcophagus is falling apart … 45 countries including the United States, Russia and the United Kingdom all donate towards a new safe confinement shelter. ibid.
It’s a wet and windy weekend in the middle of November. And the first new British submarine to be built for ten years is now preparing to sail out into the open sea for the very first time. How to Build … a Nuclear Submarine, BBC 2010
She is one of the most technologically advanced machines in the world. ibid.
The symbol of all evil: it is something odd, hidden deep behind two words: Hiroshima, Nagasaki. It was said that it was a war against fascism. It was said it was to prevent further American death, but hundreds of thousands died, the accounting is irrefutable. In a chess game, the objective is to checkmate the opponent’s king. All of the pieces then become collateral. Their respective value depends on the strategic value you assign to them. In the present case the king is an emperor, and Japanese death will provide the collateral. Shock and awe. A massacre determined by an algorithm. It came at eight o’clock on August 6th 1945. Nobody was expecting it. They were pawns in a sordid game. Killing at a distance had just taken on a new meaning. No explanation required, no cries tolerated. No pity. Exterminate All the Brutes s1e3: Killing at a Distance or … How I Thoroughly Enjoyed the Outing ***** Sky Documentaries 2021