LOSE YOURSELF IN 1968
HYDROGEN HORROR
There’s a nuclear scare in Greenland when a US B-52 Stratofortress bomber catches fire and crashes near Thule Air Base with four hydrogen bombs on board. While the nuclear devices don’t go off, the conventional explosives do, resulting in some radioactivity being released around North Star Bay. Both the USA and Denmark launch an extensive clean-up exercise at the site, with two of the radioactive materials unleashed having a half-life of 700 million and 4.5 billion years.
The whole process takes 700 people from both countries over nine months to complete, at a cost of $9.4 million. Although there are assurances at the time that all four bombs have been found and disposed of, it later transpires that only three were found. It also turns out that despite Denmark purporting to have a nuclear-free policy since 1957, the USA stockpiled weapons there until 1965. Whoops…
EARTHRISE
One of the most famous photographs ever is taken… not on this planet, but of it. On Christmas Eve, the Apollo 8 spacecraft enters orbit around the moon. This means that astronauts Frank Borman, Jim Lovell and William A Anders are the first humans to see the far side of the moon and the Earth as a whole. During the flight, Anders, while taking pictures of the surface of the moon with a 250mm lens, also snaps the shot of the ascending blue Earth on his Hasselblad 500 EL camera, above the surface of the moon.
Back home again, the picture receives widespread exposure and is credited with kickstarting a new international consciousness about the beauty and fragility of the planet. Life magazine included it in its 100 Photographs that Changed the World book (and also had it as the main image on the front cover) with wilderness photographer, Galen Rowell, calling it ‘the most influential environmental photograph ever taken’ inside. It’s also used on a US Postal Service stamp.
‘What makes this picture so fabulous is it’s such a snapshot of ordinary British motoring circa 1968’ CAR PARK CROWDS AT EASTBOURNE