Timeline of nuclear risk
From Timelines
This is a timeline of FIXME.
Contents
Sample questions
The following are some interesting questions that can be answered by reading this timeline:
Big picture
| Time period | Development summary | More details |
|---|
Full timeline
| Year | Month and date | Event type | Details | |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1956 | November 5 | False Alarms during the Suez Crisis. | ||
| 1960 | October 5 | A radar alert from Thule, Greenland is sent to NORAD, announcing the detection of dozens of Soviet missiles launched for the United States. | ||
| 1961 | January 24 | H-bombs Dropped on North Carolina. | ||
| 1961 | November 24 | "On this evening, communication links between Strategic Air Command headquarters (SAC HQ) and NORAD went dead. The result was that SAC HQ lost communication with three Ballistic Missile Early Warning Sites (BMEWS) around the world, all of which were supposed to run on independent telephone and telegraph lines." | ||
| 1962 | August 23 | "US Bomber in Soviet No-Fly Zone" | ||
| 1962 | October 24 | "Soviet Satellite Explodes During Cuban Missile Crisis" | ||
| 1962 | October 25 | "Bear Triggers Nuclear Alarm" | ||
| 1962 | October 26 | "US F102A Fighters vs Soviet MIG interceptors" | ||
| 1962 | October 26 | "Unannounced ICBM Launch during Cuban Missile Crisis A Titan-II ICBM was launched from Florida into the South Pacific. But no one alerted the Moorestown Radar site." | ||
| 1962 | October 26 | "Easy-access Codes. With nuclear foreces on high alert because the Cuban Missile Crisis was escalating, work was accelerated at the Malmstrom Air Force Base to prepare the Minuteman-1 missiles for full deployment. In the rush, proper handover procedures and safety checks were skipped. The result was that one of the silos and missiles were ready to go with no armed guards to cover their transport to separate storage. All of the launch equipment and codes were placed together in the silo, which would have allowed a single operator to launch a fully armed missile." | ||
| 1962 | October 27 | "October 27, 1962 Soviet Sub Captain Decides to Fire Nuclear Torpedo During Cuban Missile Crisis. This may be the closest call of all. eleven US Navy destroyers and the aircraft carrier USS Randolph had cornered the Soviet submarine B-59 near Cuba, in International waters outside the US “quarantine” area. What they didn’t know was that the temperature onboard had risen past 45ºC (113ºF) as the submarine’s batteries were running out and the air-conditioning had stopped. On the verge of carbon dioxide poisoning, many crew members fainted. The crew had had no contact with Moscow for days and didn’t know whether World War III had already begun. Then the Americans started dropping small depth charges at them which, unbeknownst to the crew, they’d informed Moscow were merely meant to force them to surface and leave." | ||
| 1962 | October 27 | "U2 Spy Plane Shot Down Over Cuba" | ||
| 1962 | October 28 | "The newly operational Laredo warning site notified NORAD that they had identified two missiles over Georgia." | ||
| 1962 | October 28 | "At nearly 9:00 AM, NORAD received news from Moorestown, NJ that a nuclear strike was expected to hit Tampa, FL at 9:02." | ||
| 1965 | November 9 | "Power Failure Mistaken for Nuclear Blasts" | ||
| 1967 | May 23 | "Confusing Solar Flares and Nuclear Attacks" | ||
| 1968 | January 21 | "Hydrogen Bomb Shatters in Greenland" | ||
| 1973 | October 24 | "False Alarm During DEFCON 3. During the Arab-Israeli war, the U.S. went to high alert as a way of warning the U.S.S.R. not to intervene. " | ||
| 1974 | August 1 | “In his last weeks in office during the Watergate crisis, President Richard M. Nixon was clinically depressed, emotionally unstable, and drinking heavily. U.S. Secretary of Defense James R. Schlesinger instructed the Joint Chiefs of Staff to route “any emergency order coming from the president”—such as a nuclear launch order— through him first (Schlosser 2013, p. 360).” | ||
| 1979 | October 9 | "Simulated Soviet Attack Mistaken for Real" | ||
| 1980 | March 15 | "“The Soviet Union launched four submarine-based missiles from near the Kuril Islands as part of a training exercise. Based on data from a U.S. early warning sensor, one of the launches appeared to have a trajectory aimed at the United States. This led the United States to convene officials for a threat assessment conference (Comptroller General of the United States 1981).”" | ||
| 1980 | June 3 — June 6 | "Faulty Chip Signals Soviet Attack" | ||
| 1980 | September 18 — September 19 | "Silo Explosion Kills Airman" | ||
| 1983 | September 26 | "Soviet Union Detects Incoming Missiles. A Soviet early warning satellite showed that the United States had launched five land-based missiles at the Soviet Union." | ||
| 1983 | November 2 — November 11 | "Soviets Misinterpret US Nuclear War Games NATO conduced a massive command post exercise simulating a period of conflict escalation November 2-11 1983. This culminated with a simulation of the highest military alert status, DEFCON 1, and a coordinated nuclear attack against the Soviet Union." | ||
| 1995 | January 25 | "Norwegian Rocket Mistaken for ICBM" | ||
| 2007 | August 29 — August 30 | “Six nuclear-armed cruise missiles were mistakenly loaded onto a B-52 bomber at Minot Air Force Base in North Dakota. Although there were multiple instances when the crew should have verified that the cruise missiles were not armed, no one followed required protocol to check for live weapons. The plane sat overnight on the tarmac at Minot, unguarded. It then flew 1,500 miles to a base in Louisiana where it sat unguarded for another nine hours until a maintenance crew there realized that the weapons were live. In total, there were 36 hours during which no one in the Air Force realized that six live nuclear weapons were missing (Schlosser 2013, p. 473). In response to the incident, retired Air Force General Eugene Habiger, commander of U.S. Strategic Command from 1996 to 1998, said, “I have been in the nuclear business since 1966 and am not aware of any incident more disturbing” (Warrick and Pincus 2007).” | ||
| 2016 | March 18 – June 15 | "19 airmen from the 90th Missile Wing at F. E. Warren Air Force Base are under investigation for illegal drug use. The base operates 150 nuclear missiles, and the airmen who are being charged were responsible for ensuring the security of the weapons." |
Meta information on the timeline
How the timeline was built
The initial version of the timeline was written by FIXME.
Funding information for this timeline is available.
Feedback and comments
Feedback for the timeline can be provided at the following places:
- FIXME
What the timeline is still missing
- Treaty on the Non-Proliferation of Nuclear Weapons
- Missile Technology Control Regime
- Multilateral export control regime
- Wassenaar Arrangement
- Nuclear Suppliers Group
- 13 steps
- Nuclear disarmament
- Anti-nuclear movement
- Campaign for Nuclear Disarmament
- Comprehensive Nuclear-Test-Ban Treaty
- Global Initiative to Combat Nuclear Terrorism
- New Agenda Coalition
- Treaty on the Prohibition of Nuclear Weapons
- Zangger Committee
- Nuclear War Survival Skills
- Nuclear holocaust
