In recent decades, the world came close to a nuclear war, which would have destroyed everyone and everything. During the Cuban Missile Crisis, the United States and the Soviet Union leaders engaged in a tense, 13-day political and military standoff in October 1962 over the installation of nuclear-armed Soviet missiles on Cuba, just 90 miles from U.S. shores. In a TV address on October 22, 1962, President John F. Kennedy notified Americans about the presence of the missiles, explained his decision to enact a naval blockade around Cuba and made it clear the U.S. was prepared to use military force if necessary to neutralise this perceived threat to national security.
Following this news, many people feared the world was on the brink of nuclear war. However, disaster was avoided when the U.S. agreed to Soviet leader Nikita Khrushchev’s (1894-1971) offer to remove the Cuban missiles in exchange for the U.S. promising not to invade Cuba. President Kennedy also secretly agreed to remove U.S. missiles from Turkey.
On another occasion September 11 attacks, also called 9/11 attacks, was a series of airline hijackings and suicide attacks committed in 2001 by 19 militants associated with the Islamic extremist group Al-Qaeda against targets in the United States, the deadliest terrorist attacks on American soil in U.S. history. The attacks against New York City and Washington, D.C., caused extensive death and destruction and triggered an enormous U.S. effort to combat terrorism. Some 2,750 people were killed in New York, 184 at the Pentagon, and 40 in Pennsylvania (where one of the hijacked planes crashed after the passengers attempted to retake the plane); all 19 terrorists died . Police and fire departments in New York were especially hard-hit: hundreds had rushed to the scene of the attacks, and more than 400 police officers and firefighters were killed. Most analysts believe the next attack was aimed at the White House at 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue, Washington, DC. They say it is unclear whether the then President George Bush was in a basement in the White House or elsewhere but if the White House was attacked there could have been a nuclear war.
Later this month, the United Nations marks the International Day against Nuclear Tests. In a statement the UN says since nuclear weapons testing began on July 16, 1945, more than 2,000 have taken place. In the early days of nuclear testing little consideration was given to its devastating effects on human life, let alone the dangers of nuclear fallout from atmospheric tests. Hindsight and history have shown us the terrifying and tragic effects of nuclear weapons testing, especially when controlled conditions go awry, and in light of the far more powerful and destructive nuclear weapons that exist today.
On December 2, 2009, the 64th session of the United Nations General Assembly declared August 29 as the International Day against Nuclear Tests by unanimously adopting a resolution. The resolution calls for increasing awareness and education about the effects of nuclear weapon test explosions or any other nuclear explosions and the need for their cessation as one of the means of achieving the goal of a nuclear-weapon-free world. The resolution was initiated by the Republic of Kazakhstan, together with a large number of sponsors and co-sponsors with a view to commemorating the closure of Kazakhstan’s Semipalatinsk Nuclear Test site on August 29, 1991.
According to the UN, 2010 marked the inaugural commemoration of the International Day against Nuclear Tests. In each subsequent year, the day has been observed by coordinating various activities such as symposia, conferences, exhibits, competitions, publications, lectures, media broadcasts and other initiatives throughout the world. Since its establishment, many bilateral and multilateral governmental level developments and broad movements in civil society have helped to advance the cause of banning nuclear tests.
Though many people unknowingly associate Jewish American scientist Albert Einstein with nuclear weapons, his vision was different. In the 1920s, Einstein embarked on the construction of unified field theories, although he continued to work on the probabilistic interpretation of quantum theory, and he persevered with this work in America. He contributed to statistical mechanics by his development of the quantum theory of a monatomic gas and he has also accomplished valuable work in connection with atomic transition probabilities and relativistic cosmology. He did this for the development of the world and he is sad that power-hungry and self-centred leaders have turned this into weapons of war. Commenting on this he said, “I know not with what weapons World War III will be fought, but World War IV will be fought with sticks and stones. The release of atomic power has changed everything except our way of thinking. The solution to this problem lies in the hearts of world leaders. If only I had known, I should have become a watchmaker. The unleashed power of the atom has changed everything save our modes of thinking and we thus drift toward unparalleled catastrophe.”
