DARK SECRETS: Cold war | Vintage Vibes

Zak Bagans buys $4.55M underground Las Vegas bunker for public museum

Beneath the neon-lit spectacle of the Las Vegas Strip lies a world that seems to belong to another era, where painted skies replace the real thing and landscaped interiors create the illusion of life above ground. Built to offer refuge from the anxieties of the Cold War, an extraordinary subterranean…

The Times of India · Oct 9

Russia conducting nuclear drill near Cold War-era ‘Doomsday’ bunker recently upgraded with 24,000 tons of steel and 62,000 tons of cement

Russia is currently conducting a major nuclear disaster drill involving over 1,000 participants in the Sverdlovsk region. The exercise tests emergency services' responses to a nuclear catastrophe with multiple crises happening simultaneously. Associated with the Dead Hand system, a significant Cold War-era bunker is also being upgraded for renewed operations.…

The Economic Times · Oct 6

Conservatives propose £10bn ‘Britannia Shield’ inspired by Israel’s Iron Dome

Party to unveil plans for one of UK’s ‘most significant military programmes since the cold war’

The Guardian - UK · Oct 5

China state newspaper blasts Anthropic's calls to slow AI as 'Cold War' tactic

In the essay published on Saturday and later endorsed by OpenAI CEO Sam Altman and ‌SpaceX founder Elon ⁠Musk, ⁠Dario Amodei outlined a framework to pace the development of frontier AI model capabilities and ​create more time to manage mounting safety risks.

The Economic Times · Sep 14

9/11 unleashed two decades of war. Now Putin is exploiting the damage

IN DEPTH: The horror of the attacks 25 years ago and their aftermath has seen the Cold War replaced by endless conflict between competing cultures and religions, explains world affairs editor Sam Kiley

The Independent UK · Sep 9

1,500 residents were displaced from Hanford in 1943; 83 years later, the Washington site holds about 56 million gallons of radioactive and hazardous waste

In 1943, residents were uprooted from their homes to create the Hanford nuclear site, which played a crucial role in generating plutonium for the United States during significant wartime events and the Cold War. Currently, more than fifty million gallons of hazardous waste remain stored in aging tanks, many of…

The Economic Times · Sep 1

In 1953, Britain detonated an atomic bomb in Australia, sending a mysterious black mist across the desert before a secret programme began testing children’s bones for radiation

During the Cold War, Britain undertook covert nuclear tests in Australia, leading to hazardous radioactive fallout termed the Black Mist that endangered Aboriginal communities. Authorities, without consent, gathered human bones to assess strontium-90 levels, specifically focusing on infants and children for bone growth studies. The ramifications of these nuclear tests…

The Economic Times · Aug 26

Trump’s Cuba report borrowed heavily from my book on an anti-imperialist movement – but twisted the arguments

For decades after the Cuban Revolution’s victory in 1959, influential anticommunist circles in the United States claimed that Cuba’s communist government sowed social division and allied with left-wing groups to help defeat Washington during the Cold War.

The Conversation · Aug 25

In 1975, Soviet Union sent a cannon to space and tested it from Salyut 3 station, just six months before US and Soviet astronauts met in orbit for the Apollo-Soyuz mission during the Cold War

In January 1975, the Soviet Union fired a 23mm cannon from its Salyut 3 military space station as a test of its orbital defence system. The weapon was intended mainly to protect the station from a possible close-range attack or capture attempt, months before the historic Apollo-Soyuz mission brought the…

The Economic Times · Aug 24

Hungary’s forgotten Soviet city still stands near Lake Balaton: The story of Szentkirályszabadja and its sudden Cold War disappearance

Szentkirályszabadja, once a bustling Soviet military town, now stands quietly near Lake Balaton, predominantly uninhabited. During the Cold War, it served as a home to numerous soldiers and their families. Following the withdrawal of Soviet troops, the town experienced a gradual decline. Nature has taken over the dilapidated buildings and…

The Economic Times · Aug 17