Episode
Modern Marvels: Deadliest Weapons
Overview
In this fiery hour, we profile five of man's deadliest weapons, focusing on the inventors, battles, and dark technology behind their lethality. We begin with the deadliest bomb ever created, the Tsar Bomba–a 50-megaton nuclear bomb with a yield thousands of times greater than the one dropped on Hiroshima. During WWI, technological advances in weaponry led to the deaths of over 8-million, and one of the deadliest killers was the machine gun. In WWII, the use of incendiary bombs killed hundreds of thousands of people. Another deadly invention of WWII was the proximity fuse, or VT fuse, that allowed artillery to detonate within a predetermined range of an enemy target. Finally, we examine VX nerve gas, thought by many to be the deadliest chemical agent ever created and suspected to have been used by Saddam Hussein with devastating results. We'll visit Edgewood Chemical BioCenter, which plays a large role in protection and detection for our troops in Iraq.
Details
- Series
- Modern Marvels
- Season
- Season 12
- Episode
- Episode 17
- Air date
- 2005-03-16
- Runtime
- 44 min
Episode context
Deadliest Weapons is Episode 17 in Season 12 of Modern Marvels. It aired on 2005-03-16. The runtime is 44 min.
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Episode 16: SWAT
Episode 18: The Doomsday Clock
Developed in 1947 as an image to symbolize urgency in the Cold War and the threat of nuclear disaster, the mission of the Doomsday Clock has expanded to include non-nuclear global security issues. Maintained by the Board of Directors of the Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists, it’s based at the University of Chicago. In response to world events, they move the clock’s minute hand closer to or away from midnight–doomsday. In this hour, we cover the clock’s history, its effectiveness, and its critics.
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