1815 marked the end of France’s formal relationship with Napoleon Bonaparte as its leader. Before this, Napoleon had been invincible in the minds of many French citizens for over a decade, embodying everything the Revolution had failed to give the French people, which was military glory, political stability, and territorial expansion.

By the time the Allied army had rolled into Paris in March of 1814, the Grande Armée could no longer sustain its campaigns. And a year later, the French had abandoned their emperor. Not begrudgingly because of a military defeat, but because he had destroyed the economy and willfully bankrupted France of its military men, many of whom died in battle.

Too Many Conscripts

Since the levée en masse of the revolution years, Napoleon had been unable to fight his wars without continuous conscriptions. And between the campaigns in Russia and Germany in 1813 and 1814, the French Empire had reached its breaking point. In 1812 alone, Napoleon had lost approximately 500,000 men in his Russian campaign. To defend the empire, he eventually called for nearly a million conscripts across the nation in 1813. Many replacements for the dead came from young French conscripts who had never been trained for war.

By the time France became the battleground in the Campaign of France in 1814, even the peasantry had no stomach left to send their sons to France’s army. Men deserted at an astonishing rate in the first three months of the campaign alone. The refractories, men too scared or stubborn to even leave for their military duties, went into hiding in forests all across France and were protected by sympathetic village folk. Soon, French civilians realized that if the fighting continued, Napoleon would not and perhaps could not allow France to know peace.

Rapid Economic Decline and the Continental System Failure

France, already financially strapped from years of funding armies and navies, suffered serious economic woes. At the time, the Continental System, which was part of Napoleon’s foreign economic policy, banned all trade between the United Kingdom and any nation that paid Napoleon fealty. While it was supposed to bolster French industries by starving Britain of trade, the British blockade of French ports made trade with France difficult. Soon, the docks of Bordeaux, Nantes, and Marseille had diminished activity. The loss of trade had far-reaching economic consequences and caused the French middle class to lose a lot of money.

The value of the franc also plummeted as inflation skyrocketed. During this time, Napoleon raised taxes on indirect consumption to pay for the ever-increasing costs of war. For all the money and resources he had swallowed up, Napoleon had managed to make France ungovernable. By the time the Allies reached French soil, they found more pitchforks raised against Parisian officials who were accused of theft and corruption. In some areas of France, the Allies were welcomed as liberators, and the return of the Bourbons was embraced for the simple reason that a Bourbon restoration would mean trade with Britain would resume. It also meant that civilians could work in the manufacturing industry again due to a bigger market for their products.

The Realization That He Would Lead Paris to Destruction

In March 1814, when the Allies pushed past Napoleon’s generals and fought their way into Paris, the city’s governing body, the Senate, realized that if it continued to follow Napoleon’s lead, the capital would burn to the ground. And so, left with no other option, the French Senate voted on 2 April 1814 to have Napoleon deposed, citing his violations of the constitution and his refusal to sign a peace treaty.

But even after Paris betrayed him, Napoleon still thought he could march on the city in triumph and take his throne back by force, even after he was exiled to the island of Elba. He was wrong. 

The Escape from the Island

In February 1815, he escaped the island and landed in France to try to take back his empire. The other European nations quickly gathered their armies to stop him. His final attempt to stay in power ended on 18 June 1815 at the Battle of Waterloo. Napoleon was defeated by the British and Prussian armies and was forced to give up his throne for a second time. To make sure he could never return, the British exiled him to Saint Helena, a very remote island in the Atlantic Ocean. He lived there under guard until his death in 1821.

Within many Islamic societies, animal welfare developed into an ingrained religious and cultural practice. In the Qur’an, animals were classified as living, sentient creatures. As such, they were deserving of respect, mercy, and charity. The Ottoman Empire followed these customs and created a network of professions, charities, and laws to protect and care for all animals. Regardless of whether they were strays or pets, communal efforts provided food, shelter, and protection for all kinds of animals throughout the Empire.

Ottoman Legal Protection of Animals

Animal welfare was codified into Ottoman law by the 16th century. In 1587, Sultan Murad III issued an early declaration of animal rights. Imperial edicts and legal codes protected pack animals like horses, mules, and donkeys from exploitation. They had to be given proper care and rest periods. For example, under Selim III, donkeys and horses could not be used during afternoon prayers and on Fridays. Tax reductions encouraged wealthier classes to establish animal charities or donate land for grazing meadows. Harming or overworking animals could lead to arrest, fees, or public beatings. 

Street Care and Professional Animal Feeders

Ottoman culture, architecture, and local initiatives cared for street animals. Wooden structures were built in private and public gardens to provide shelter for animals, even including reptiles. Straw was left under shady spaces for animals to rest upon. Mosques and other public institutions set money aside to feed hundreds of cats or birds. 

During Ramadan, extra food was prepared and set out for them near fountains and in courtyards. For example, in the early 20th century, İsmail Saib Sencer, the manager of the Istanbul National Library, famously cared for hundreds of street cats who often accompanied him during work.

Street dogs became beloved protectors of local neighborhoods. Many strays became protective of these spaces, fending off intruders or wolves. Stone bowls were left outside of buildings to offer water, ice, or leftover food. Neighbors distributed food and aided pregnant and injured dogs. 

A specific profession even rose to care for street animals. Known as mancacılar, these vendors prepared nutritious blends of meat scraps, liver, and tripe for strays. Locals bought the meat to give to their neighborhood animals. Wealthier patrons paid the mancacılar to distribute all the food they prepared that day to the stray animals themselves.

Animal Hospitals

The Ottoman Empire’s first animal hospital opened in Bursa in the 19th century. Called the Gurabahâne-i Laklakan, meaning House for Injured Storks, the hospital cared for injured migratory birds. Many pre-existing animal welfare institutions focused on healing animals tied to financial compensation, labor, or farming. Instead, this hospital was one of the first solely dedicated to caring for wild animals. Institutional financing and community donations supported veterinary care to rehabilitate storks with broken or injured wings until they were healthy enough to be released. Restored in 2010, the hospital now serves as an animal clinic. 

Bird Palaces

Bird palaces, known as kuş sarayları or kuş köşkleri, were built on the facades of mosques, madrasahs, palaces, and other public buildings. These stone houses were carved as miniature re-creations of the buildings they are attached to. This allowed birds to perch and nest in cool and protected homes away from busy public squares. The tradition of building elaborate bird houses dates back to the Seljuk Empire, 200 years before the rise of the Ottoman Empire. Ottoman bird palaces can be found throughout Istanbul today, serving over 300 bird species that still call the city home. 

Public Fountains

Water structures were built in city centers, along major trade routes, or near mosques to offer water to travelers, the unhoused, and stray animals. Known as sebil, these kiosks and water fountains provided free water for drinking or cleansing rituals. They were common features throughout Islamic empires as part of communal charity efforts. Many of these fountains were commissioned by sultans, the imperial family, grand viziers, and other high-ranking officials to care for stray dogs, cats, and birds. For example, in 1544, the grand vizier Lütfi Pasha donated money to fund fountains and pools for stray animals and travelers in İzmir.

France has gone through many wars and conflicts. But if you were to ask the average French person to identify the nation’s deadliest war, chances are they will point you towards the trenches of the Somme or Verdun. And that’s because those locations featured prominently during World War I. Notably, the conflict led to about 1.3 million French deaths and is widely regarded as the deadliest war that France has ever experienced.

Analyzing the Demographic Disaster

To understand how World War I crippled France, demographic data offer more details regarding the mortality of the conflict. In August of 1914, France was full of patriotic energy. Under the banner of the Union Sacrée, civilians and soldiers stood united for France. But that sentiment was destroyed on the banks of the Marne, the Somme, and in the hills above Verdun, as the war preyed disproportionately on one specific group— young men. 

While every nation involved saw fewer births during the war, France was hit hard, resulting in what historians refer to as the “birth deficit.” 

French men born around 1894, for example, who had just reached adulthood by 1914, died in large numbers, with studies indicating that roughly 30 percent of that specific age group died during the conflict.

A Nation out of Balance

It should come as no surprise that France experienced countless war widows as a result of the First World War. With over a million dead, how did French society recover from the heavy loss of young men? 

In a notable shift in French population trends, there were simply not enough men to go around. In the age groups most affected by the war (ages 20 to 35 in 1918), there were roughly 0.88 men for every French woman. What gets forgotten is that there were just as many women who did not become war widows because their potential husbands were never around to be lost. 

As a result, France suffered from hundreds of thousands of “missing marriages” due to the lost generation of soldiers. What did these missing marriages mean for France? A crisis of labor. During the early 1920s, France faced a shortage of manual labor that could not be met by its own citizens. To fill jobs that would have otherwise gone to the lost generation, the country relied heavily on immigration. Between 1921 and 1931, France accepted more than one million immigrants, mainly from Italy, Poland, and Spain, to bridge the gap left by its fallen soldiers.

How the War Compared to the Napoleonic Wars

The war devastated a generation. When comparing it with the Napoleonic Wars, it is easy to see a tragic progression. While Napoleon’s era saw a demographic decline that France struggled with, World War I worsened France’s population problems. By the end of the conflict, millions of families suffered the loss of fathers, sons, and breadwinners. For perspective, France lost a higher number of men compared to Britain. The physical and psychological losses also cannot be understated. 

It is estimated that World War I cost France roughly 1.3 million dead soldiers. While Napoleon fought on a much grander scale, the Napoleonic Wars caused fewer long-term changes to France’s population than the Great War. France recovered more quickly from the losses of the Napoleonic era and regained its power. That said, the nation took many decades to recover from the losses sustained during the First World War. And even when it did, it still had more immigrants than before 1914.

Why the Great War Changed France Forever

France was the European nation with one of the highest numbers of immigrants in the years following the First World War. By 1939, when it went to war again, the French population graphs were still hollow. One generation of lost fathers equaled one generation of lost sons. France’s top demographer at the time, Alfred Sauvy, called it a nation aging before its time. So when the Second World War came two decades later, they were fighting with far fewer young men than France should have had. In many ways, WWI remains one of France’s deadliest conflicts.

By mid-1945, the Empire of Japan was at its breaking point. Its navy had been all but destroyed, and the rest of the Axis Powers in Europe had been defeated. Over half of its four-million-strong army was bogged down in China, an ongoing campaign since 1937. In short, Japan was beaten but not yet willing to surrender. Historically, Japan finally surrendered after the atomic bombings and the Soviet invasion of Manchuria. However, before these developments, the United States planned to go through with a full-scale invasion: Operation Downfall.

The Pacific War and the War in China

In 1937, the Empire of Japan launched an invasion of China. While initially successful, their conquests stalled in 1939, and the Second Sino-Japanese War became a bloody war of attrition. In 1941, Japan, taking advantage of the German victories in Europe, began its own lightning-fast series of campaigns across the Pacific. While the most famous of these attacks was the attack on Pearl Harbor, Japan also rapidly and successfully invaded American (Guam, Wake Island, and the Philippines) and British territories (Hong Kong, Malaya, and Burma) in the region.

Despite initial victories in the Pacific, the Imperial Japanese Navy’s gamble at Pearl Harbor did not pay off. Instead of scaring the US into negotiating peace and continuing its isolationism, the assault enraged the American populace and ensured that the United States would fight Japan to the bitter end.

In the following years, the early Japanese gains in the Pacific were reversed as the US embarked on a naval and island-hopping campaign, defeating the Japanese at nearly every turn. By mid-1945, Japan had lost its grip on much of its occupied territories in the Pacific, with the American victory in the Battle of Okinawa placing the Allies within striking distance of the Japanese home islands. However, this battle proved bloody for the Americans, resulting in 12,520 Americans killed or missing, the bloodiest of the Pacific War. With each successive invasion of the Pacific War getting increasingly bloody, the planned final campaign would certainly be even worse.

The First Steps: Operation Olympic

Operation Downfall was divided into two distinct phases, the first of which was Operation Olympic. Olympic was a plan to occupy Kyushu, the southernmost island of the Japanese home islands. Scheduled for November 1, 1945 (called “X-Day”), Olympic was to be an amphibious invasion of a scale never before seen in human history. For comparison, the initial landings of Operation Overlord (more commonly referred to as D-Day), the largest amphibious invasion in history, involved around 160,000 men. The initial landing of Operation Coronet called for 14 divisions, roughly 582,000 men.

Following the establishment of beachheads in Kyushu, several hundred thousand more Allied troops were scheduled to reinforce the first forces on the island. These reinforcements would bring the total Allied troops in Kyushu to around 767,000. Applying the same 35% casualty rate experienced on Okinawa, the planners of Operation Olympic expected around 268,000 casualties (killed, wounded, or captured). While Operation Olympic would have led to huge casualties, there is no reason to suggest that the invasion of Kyushu would have failed. With the battles of Normandy and Okinawa as models, one could expect heavy initial resistance from Japanese forces followed by months of heavy fighting that would likely last into 1946 until the end of the war.

Before the actual troop landings, Downfall called for increased bombing raids across the Japanese home islands, which were carried out using incendiary bombs. Large swathes of Tokyo were burned to the ground, and roughly 400,000 Japanese died in these bombing raids across the country.

In the ten days preceding X-Day, bombings would be increased and target important fortifications and bases across Japan. On the day before the landings on Kyushu, both air and sea forces would heavily bombard the landing beaches in hopes of softening the Japanese defenses.

Finally, on X-Day, US Marine and Army forces would land simultaneously in southern Kyushu on three separate landing sites, quickly moving to secure important objectives and clear the way for reinforcements to follow. However, the Imperial Japanese Army had anticipated an invasion of Kyushu and made its own plans to respond—plans that the Allies might not have been prepared to handle.

The Japanese Response: Operation Ketsugo

In 1274, Japan had fought off an attempted invasion by the Mongol Empire thanks to a “Kamikaze” (Divine Wind, a typhoon that sank the Mongol fleet). When the Mongols returned in another, even larger invasion attempt in 1281, it too was destroyed by a typhoon. This defeat was even more destructive for the Mongols, with some accounts even claiming 100,000 losses for the Mongol army.

While this might not seem relevant to Operation Downfall, the Japanese might have been greatly helped by another “Divine Wind.” The originally planned date for Operation Coronet, November 1, was amid a particularly terrible typhoon season, meaning Coronet would likely need to be postponed. Early December was the earliest, but 1946 was more likely to avoid the winter storms. This would have given Japanese forces even more time to prepare for the seemingly inevitable conflict.

While Japanese forces overseas had suffered massive defeats across all fronts, the Imperial Japanese Army still had significant forces in the home islands. Knowing an American invasion would most likely land in Kyushu, it was the closest of the home islands to the now American-controlled Okinawa; the Japanese planned on confronting the invasion there. The Japanese defense plan, called Operation Ketsugo (translating to “Decisive Operation”), called for the construction of new airfields in Kyushu, primarily for use by kamikaze pilots. By the historical date of the Japanese surrender (August 14, 1945), the Imperial Japanese Army had amassed a force of over 900,000 troops for the defense of Kyushu, a number that likely would have ballooned even further given more time.

In addition to a massive wave of kamikaze strikes, the Imperial Japanese Navy also had several hundred two-man “midget submarines” to harass American ships, at least 800 suicide “Shinyo” motor boats assigned to Kyushu, and a planned 4,000 “Fukuryu,” suicide divers. The Japanese even planned to mobilize their “Civilian Volunteer Corps,” an army of conscripted civilians, both men and women, armed with hand grenades, swords, spears, and anything else they could use to inflict death. Approximately 2.4 million civilians lived in Kyushu, and many of them (men aged 15-60 and women aged 17-40) would be sent to die under the slogan “the glorious death of the 100 million.”

Ketsugo was not intended to stop the invasion; in fact, it relied on allowing American landings. Ketsugo was designed to cause as many American casualties as possible, no matter the cost to the Japanese people. The hope was that inflicting so many casualties on American forces would make the US public demand peace, thus avoiding a foreign occupation of Japan through a negotiated peace.

It was a desperate final gambit, not a serious chance at victory. However, this was not likely to work. The American public was still enraged at the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor and fully committed to seeing the war to its end. In the eyes of the United States, Japan’s unconditional surrender was the only path to peace, and this was not likely to change.

The Final Blow: Operation Coronet

The second phase of Downfall, Operation Coronet, was intended to land on Honshu, the largest of the Japanese home islands. According to the plan, US forces would land on the Kanto Plain near Tokyo on March 1, 1946, called “Y-Day.” Theoretically, they would capture the Japanese capital, deal a knockout blow, and end the war. Coronet called for landing 25 divisions, a significantly larger force than that used in the Kyushu landings. Overall, Coronet was intended to include 1,171,646 American troops and Australian, Canadian, British, and French reinforcements following the initial landings in the Kanto Plain. Unlike Olympic, American forces would also include two armored divisions sent from Europe, which would have a significant advantage over weaker Japanese tanks. Like the invasion of Kyushu, Coronet would be preceded by major bombardments of the Kanto Plain by land and sea, with many planes taking off from airfields in occupied Kyushu.

Japanese defenses were significantly weaker near Tokyo than those in Kyushu, and they lacked sizable forces to defend the city. While Japanese forces were prepared to defend Tokyo to the last man, the Japanese military knew the region was indefensible due to the flat plains of the region. Instead of simply inflicting casualties as was planned for Kyushu, the defense plan of Honshu relied on driving the American forces into the sea and preventing them from establishing a beachhead. The Japanese understood that should a significant American force land in the Kanto Plain and successfully establish a beachhead, it would inevitably succeed in capturing Tokyo. Because of the more powerful Allied force planned for landing on Honshu and the weaker Japanese defenses, Coronet would likely be less bloody than Olympic and, should the Japanese high command or even the emperor himself be captured, a war-winning decisive battle.

Would Operation Downfall Have Succeeded?

While an invasion of Japan would have been enormously deadly, American combat deaths in WWII would likely have more than doubled, and the Japanese population would have suffered even more, Downfall would almost certainly have resulted in an Allied victory. The United States massively outmatched Japan in population, industry, and resources, and the American populace was fully committed to seeing the war through to its end. The Allies were unwilling to allow anything less than Japan’s unconditional surrender.

Regardless of Ketsugo and the increased casualties it would undoubtedly cause, Japan’s defeat was inevitable. Of course, Operation Downfall was never carried out. Instead of months of brutal combat in a land invasion of Japan, the war ended only a few days after two atomic bombings and the loss of Japanese territories in mainland Asia to a Soviet invasion. While it is impossible to say for certain how Operation Downfall would play out, an American victory at enormous cost for both sides seems the most likely scenario.

Manila was considered one of the most cosmopolitan cities in Asia before the Second World War. In 1945, after several years of Japanese occupation, Manila suffered a terrible fate when it was faced with a combination of Japanese cruelty and American firepower. By the time the Americans and their Filipino allies gained control of the city, it was completely devastated and would take years to rebuild. The battle was one of the most devastating instances of urban warfare during WWII.

Manila Under Japanese Occupation

One day after Japanese aircraft bombed Pearl Harbor, the Japanese began launching air raids over major sites throughout the Philippines. Tokyo aimed to conquer the Philippines, set up a puppet regime, and seize control of natural resources throughout the islands. This was part of Japan’s plan to create the so-called “Greater East Asia Co-prosperity Sphere,” a euphemism for its Asian empire. After landing tens of thousands of men across the archipelago, Japanese forces seized Manila on January 2, 1942. They subsequently defeated the rest of the Allied garrisons on the islands within a couple of months.

Japan’s military administration of the Philippines was headquartered in Manila, making it the center of power for Japan in the Philippines. For the rest of the war, Japan garrisoned Manila with a mixture of army and navy units to keep order. Members of the Kempetai, Japan’s secret police, worked with local collaborators to hunt down anyone deemed a threat to the Japanese. Citizens of Allied countries were locked up in prisons or internment camps like Santo Tomas, along with American POWs captured during the initial seizure of the islands. Even though Japan granted the Philippines “independence,” it maintained control and employed vicious methods of repression.

Filipinos were used to fighting outside occupiers; they had spent years fighting against Spanish and American imperialism. Now, they sought to work with Americans who escaped the fall of Bataan to fight Japan from the shadows. In addition to spy rings in the city, a group of guerrilla fighters called Hunters ROTC operated near the city and attacked Japanese targets. They waited patiently for the US military to return.

American Landing on Luzon and Advance to Manila

When General Douglas MacArthur arrived in Australia in 1942 after fleeing the Philippines, he vowed that he would return at the head of an army to liberate the islands. In 1944, he landed on Leyte with the US Sixth Army. Once Japan was defeated there and on Mindoro island, MacArthur’s command, called Southwest Pacific Area Command (SWPA), prepared for the invasion of Luzon. General Walter Krueger’s Sixth Army, initially consisting of the I Corps (6th and 43rd Infantry Divisions) and the XIV Corps (37th and 40th Infantry Divisions), was assigned to land on a stretch of beaches on the Lingayen Gulf in northern Luzon. Afterwards, they would strike south and east to defeat Japanese forces. One of the priority objectives for the Sixth Army was retaking Manila.

On January 9, 1945, the Sixth Army landed at the Lingayen Gulf and proceeded to move inland. Japanese General Tomoyuki Yamashita, commander of the 14th Area Army, had three groups of troops defending the whole island: the Shobu, Shimbu, and Kembo groups. He sought to concentrate his forces in the north of the island and ordered his men to fight a delaying action. Under pressure from American forces and Filipino guerillas, Japanese infantry and armored units withdrew to the center of the island.

General Oscar Griswold’s XIV Corps pushed south from the beaches towards Clark Field, the largest airfield in the Philippines. By the end of the month, they seized it from the Kembo group and advanced to the northern outskirts of the city to link up with American forces that had landed south of Manila.

Japanese Defenses and the Start of the Battle

General Yamashita became concerned that Japanese forces in the Manila area would be cut off by the American advance. When paratroopers of the 11th Airborne Division landed south of Manila, Yamashita ordered the Shimbu Group commander, General Shizuo Yokoyama, to destroy infrastructure and weapons dumps in the city and retreat east. Yokoyama complied, but Rear Admiral Sanji Iwabuchi announced he would remain in the city with over 16,000 sailors and marines to defend the city. Three army engineer battalions remained in the city and joined preparations to defend it.

Admiral Iwabuchi’s Manila Naval Defense Force had eight army and navy battalions in the city and its outskirts. Much of the garrison consisted of crews of sunken ships and did not have training for an urban battle. They did have large stockpiles of weapons and engineering equipment. Multiple lines of defense were dug north and south of the city and buildings were turned into fortresses. Iwabuchi hoped to make the battle as costly as possible for the Americans.

From the north, the 37th Infantry and newly arrived 1st Cavalry Division pushed south on MacArthur’s personal orders. General Joseph Swing’s 11th Airborne Division transferred from the Eighth Army and joined the Sixth Army’s advance. They began to break through the southern Japanese defenses. Griswold’s forces pushed south and liberated the Bilibid and Santo Tomas prison camps by early February. They were joined by Filipino guerilla units including Hunter’s ROTC. By this point, three American divisions with nearly 40,000 men surrounded the city. Iwabuchi’s garrison was cut off.

Crossing the Pasig River and Capturing Nichols Field

General Griswold’s GIs found themselves facing tougher resistance as they continued deeper into the city. Despite having successfully liberated two prison camps, the Americans still had a long way to go. Japanese defenses north of the Pasig River were meant to be a trip wire but were formidable nonetheless. When American forces secured the north bank by February 6, MacArthur declared total victory prematurely. The 37th Infantry and 1st Cavalry Divisions still had to enter the main areas of the city.

When troops of the 148th and 129th Infantry Regiments attempted to cross the Pasig in small boats, they found themselves under heavy fire from Japanese sailors on Provisor Island. Within a couple of days, they managed to seize the island and create a foothold on the south bank, but resistance was fierce. Admiral Iwabuchi had concentrated elements of five battalions south of the river and Japanese fortifications were strong. The 37th Division pushed slowly southward while the 1st Cavalry Division carried out an envelopment maneuver around the city to meet the paratroopers from the south.

The 11th Airborne Division was not tasked with entering Manila proper. Instead, it was ordered to drive the garrison out of Nichols Field. The 187th and 188th Glider Infantry Regiments advanced along the runways and overran the dug-in defenders. The Japanese had so many naval guns at the airfield that one company commander radioed to his superiors “Tell Halsey to stop looking for the Jap Fleet. It’s dug in on Nichols Field.” By February 12, the Airborne had secured the airfield.

Street Fighting and Clearing Intramuros

The area south of the river witnessed brutal house-to-house fighting. Japanese forces, surrounded without hope of relief, were determined to fight to the death. They set ambushes for advancing American troops and forced the Americans to turn to heavy firepower. MacArthur restricted the use of air power but consented to artillery and mortars being used in areas with a heavy Japanese presence. American forces destroyed every Japanese position they could with tanks, artillery, mortars, and flamethrowers. The fighting resembled battles in Europe such as Aachen and Berlin.

By February 17 and 18, General Griswold’s forces secured the Rizal Baseball Stadium and the Philippine General Hospital, both of which were major Japanese strongpoints. Reinforced by 1st Cavalry Division troopers, the 37th Infantry Division managed to keep the Japanese pinned in Manila’s old Walled City, known as the Intramuros district. Admiral Iwabuchi unsuccessfully attempted to break out of his encirclement on February 18, leaving 6,000 men trapped in the pocket.

On February 23, American artillery pounded Japanese positions in Intramuros. For the next three days, American troops moved into the district, battling Japanese on every corner. When it became clear that the Japanese were defeated, Admiral Iwabuchi and his subordinates committed suicide. American forces secured major government buildings, including MacArthur’s headquarters from before the war, and ended the battle on March 3 by capturing the rest of the district. For the rest of March, American troops and Filipino guerrillas patrolled the rubble for Japanese stragglers before turning north and east to finish off the rest of Yamashita’s forces.

The Manila Massacre

Amidst the heavy fighting between American/Filipino and Japanese forces, the civilian population of Manila paid a horrible price during the destruction of their city. Of all the Allied cities fought over in WWII, Manila was one of the most heavily damaged, on par with Warsaw. It is estimated that over 100,000 Manileros died during the battle, mostly due to Japanese actions but also due to American firepower. The scale of Japan’s atrocities in the city ranks among the worst war crimes committed by any party during WWII.

Japanese forces had long believed that Filipinos were overwhelmingly hostile to their presence and that they passed information to the Americans. This environment of distrust was compounded by Japanese racism towards non-Japanese. Throughout the battle, Japanese forces gangraped and murdered Filipino civilians in the areas they controlled. In Fort Santiago, Manila Cathedral, and other prominent locations in the city, civilians were gunned down, bayoneted, or beheaded by the Japanese. There is evidence that Japanese officers commanded their men to commit atrocities by claiming every Filipino in the battle zone was a guerilla. For these atrocities, General Yamashita was sentenced to execution by hanging by an American military court after the war.

While American forces did not commit atrocities like these, their firepower devastated entire neighborhoods and killed thousands of civilians in the process. Despite efforts by MacArthur to restrict American firepower, the formidable Japanese defenses meant that the use of heavy weapons was inevitable. As a result, Manila was one of the most destroyed cities on Earth and a textbook case of urbicide. The reconstruction of the city took several years, and while Manila is now a thriving and dynamic city, the legacy of its destruction remains apparent.

Throughout the Apartheid years, South Africa’s leaders believed that their system of white rule was under imminent threat from both internal and external enemies. Having seen the effectiveness of nuclear weapons in WWII, officials in Pretoria decided that a robust nuclear program was an effective deterrent. When it relinquished them in the 1990s, South Africa set a precedent for self-disarmament that gave people hope that the nuclear age could finally come to an end.

South Africa in the Cold War

From 1948 to 1994, South Africa was ruled by the National Party, an autocratic party devoted to the maintenance of White Rule in South Africa. It authorized the total segregation of society between White people and anyone else of Black, Asian, or mixed-race background. It also promoted a strongly anti-communist ideology, arguing that racial equality was a communist plot to destroy the country. As a result, the security services brutally crushed resistance against the system, often accusing its critics of being Soviet stooges.

Initially, its policies were seen as a reflection of common practice in the African continent. When the National Party came into power and enshrined existing racist practices into law, it followed the practices of European colonies throughout the continent. However, the Cold War changed power dynamics in Africa. South Africa’s racial and security policies were seen as anachronistic and outrageous. Many revolutionary leftist factions, based inside and outside of the country, vowed to overthrow the National Party’s rule.

As South Africa began facing an increase in hostile threats, its leaders vowed to turn the state into a veritable fortress. South African prime ministers, from D.F. Malan to P.W. Botha, all sought to increase South Africa’s conventional and unconventional weapons capacity. The development of a nuclear arsenal was a part of South Africa’s deterrence efforts and one of the country’s closest-kept secrets. In doing so, South Africa became the only country in Africa to have created and allegedly tested a nuclear weapon.

The Creation of SAFARI-1

Prime Minister D.F. Malan, elected in 1948, had the twin objectives of modernizing South Africa while preserving White rule. South Africa is known for its rich mineral resources, including uranium. In 1948, his government and the Volksraad (the Apartheid-era parliament) passed the Atomic Energy Act to regulate the uranium industry in the country. The Atomic Energy Board was responsible for the country’s efforts to extract uranium and establish a civil nuclear program. It gained a boost when South Africa signed onto the American-led Atoms for Peace program.

Atoms for Peace was not meant to be a weapons program. Instead, it was meant to be an international information-sharing forum on nuclear research for civil purposes. Therefore, when South Africa signed the agreement, it did not arouse suspicions that the country aimed to develop nuclear weapons. It had already allowed the US and UK to buy a lot of its own uranium and its nuclear scientists had close ties to counterparts in the West. By joining Atoms for Peace, South Africa could gain American technology to create its own nuclear reactor.

In the late 1950s, South Africa joined the IAEA. In 1959, PM Verwoerd, a major supporter of South Africa’s nuclear program, approved the creation of a reactor at Pelindaba. A.J.A. Roux, a senior official in the Council for Scientific and Industrial Research, was in charge of the program. American engineers helped create the reactor, known as SAFARI-1. By 1965, South Africa had its first nuclear reactor, a pivotal step in the creation of an atomic weapons program.

From Civil Nuclear Power to Nuclear Weapons

In addition to South Africa receiving American backing in building SAFARI-1, the United States also sent nearly 100 kilograms of weapons-grade uranium fuel. Before the country began to become isolated, South African officials believed that they had a lot of support from the West and could afford to build a plutonium reactor called SAFARI-2. Scientists hoped to enrich plutonium and heavy water to generate nuclear power but the project was abandoned after a few years.

By the 1970s, South Africa was facing the attention of major Communist powers that supported revolutionary factions such as the African National Congress and the South West Africa People’s Organisation (SWAPO) in Namibia. Western countries were also starting to distance themselves from Pretoria. The country’s security deteriorated as a result of the Angolan Civil War and the Soweto Uprising. According to F.W. de Klerk, the RSA began to develop weapons based on a gun-type ignition in 1973. They tested explosives for the bomb at Somerset West near Cape Town. To carry a uranium warhead, South Africa is alleged to have asked Israel in 1975 for Jericho missiles. While Israel did not provide missiles, it did assist South Africa in preparing for a test and offered nuclear expertise for research and development purposes.

While the RSA did have ample uranium enrichment capability, it lacked the ability to carry a warhead. The South African Air Force began testing some of its Buccaneer bombers to carry and drop nuclear weapons in a war. Armscor, the main South African weapons manufacturer, also created missiles based on Jericho’s design called the RSA missile. Therefore, bomber aircraft became the main delivery method.

Uncovering the Kalahari Test Site and the Vela Incident

South Africa needed to test its nuclear capabilities without attracting too much international scrutiny. The gun-type ignition tests at Somerset West had attracted some attention, but it was unclear if Pretoria wanted to test a full nuclear weapon. Near Pelindaba, engineers constructed an underground test site to make sure the weapon would work. Despite efforts at maintaining secrecy, the USSR found out about the site thanks to one of their spies, Commander Dieter Gerhardt of the South African Navy.

In 1977, Soviet leader Leonid Brezhnev wrote to US President Jimmy Carter and warned him that the Soviets had detected a South African nuclear test site. The CIA confirmed the claims and Washington officials became very paranoid that South Africa wanted to become a major nuclear power. President Carter began to coordinate a group of Western countries to demand Pretoria cease any nuclear weapons production and testing. Part of the reason America backed the UNSC arms embargo on South Africa was to forestall its nuclear program.

In 1979, additional developments also concerned the United States. A satellite called VELA 6911 detected an explosion over the Indian Ocean near the South African coast. Officials panicked and assumed that someone was blowing up a low-yield bomb in violation of the Limited Test Ban Treaty. Over time, members of Carter’s administration suspected it was an Israeli test. However, they also believed that South Africa and Israel coordinated together to test a new bomb. To this day, it is unknown exactly what VELA caught, but it is believed to have been a joint Israeli-RSA test.

South Africa’s Nuclear Weapons Policy

While South African leaders feared an invasion by communist forces from Angola or an internal revolt that would lead to the country’s collapse, there was very little evidence that the country was ever under an existential threat. Neither the Soviets, Cubans, or MPLA (the People’s Movement for the Liberation of Angola) ever intended to invade the country. Any revolts in the townships were purely an internal matter. Therefore, the question about why exactly South Africa wanted nukes puzzled observers who were aware of Pretoria’s nuclear program.

Based on what is known from some declassified documents and statements by South African officials, South Africa decided to create a small arsenal of six bombs purely for the purposes of diplomatic leverage. Unlike other major nuclear-armed states, South Africa was not engaged in a nuclear arms race. However, it wanted to ensure that the West and USSR knew that if the country felt threatened, it had a nuclear option. This policy of brinksmanship was particularly apparent during the Angola War, when South Africa wanted to show that it would not back down from controlling Namibia and backing the UNITA (National Union for the Total Independence of Angola) faction.

Similar to Israel, South Africa did not announce that it had a nuclear arsenal for most of the Cold War. Maintaining opacity was considered necessary to deter South Africa’s enemies and it did not want more international scrutiny. As the Apartheid years wound down, officials in Pretoria began to ask themselves what was the purpose of maintaining this arsenal and what its future was.

Dismantling South Africa’s Nukes

As part of his effort to reduce South Africa’s pariah status on the international stage, President F.W. de Klerk ordered South Africa to halt any enrichment of uranium for nuclear purposes. He also ordered the six available bombs to be dismantled. Up to this point, as much as $240 million had been spent on South Africa’s nuclear weapons program. The international sanctions regime was making it very difficult to get the necessary parts for weapons components and any expansions to the SAFARI-1 reactor. The writing was clearly on the wall regarding the nuclear weapons program.

President de Klerk recognized that the threat from Cuban and MPLA forces in Angola was receding. He also knew that South Africa could only be welcomed back into the rest of the world if it was transparent about its security measures. In 1991, the Republic of South Africa signed the Non-Proliferation Treaty (NPT). On March 24, 1993, de Klerk gave a speech before Parliament stating that South Africa had developed a nuclear weapons program and that it was dismantling them. He invited international observers to inspect the nuclear facilities. In the years following Nelson Mandela’s election, South Africa signed onto most nuclear nonproliferation statements and agreements.

South Africa’s nuclear weapons program was one of the most infamous aspects of the Apartheid system. Pretoria showed how far it was willing to go to preserve the system of segregation and White power. The RSA made major investments into WMDs when it was not faced with an existential threat. However, by being one of the few countries willing to voluntarily dismantle its nuclear weapons program, South Africa set a positive standard in the field of nuclear disarmament. It became a case study of how a country could shed its nuclear arsenal in the quest for peace and prosperity.

For the USSR, the Soviet space program was largely a source of national pride, boasting achievements such as the first artificial satellite, Sputnik, and the first human in space, Yuri Gagarin. However, these historical milestones were interspersed with catastrophic errors, technical malfunctions, and devastating rocket explosions.

1. The R-16 Rocket Explosion That Claimed Hundreds of Lives

In the early years of the space race, the USSR strove to construct more powerful rockets that could not only send people into space but also launch a lethal nuclear payload into orbit. The R-16 intercontinental ballistic missile was a colossal device designed for military applications but was also closely associated with the Soviet space program. One of the most costly failures of the USSR’s space program occurred on October 24, 1960, when a test version of the R-16 rocket exploded on the launch pad at Baikonur Cosmodrome during a pre-flight test.

Despite growing concerns among those involved in the test that technical issues were being ignored, Marshal Mitrofan Nedelin, the chief director of the R-16 test, accelerated the schedule and disregarded safety warnings. When the test began, the second stage of the R-16 rocket caught fire. This led to a huge fireball that engulfed the test center and killed approximately 150 engineers, technicians, and military personnel. The Soviet government covered up the initial tragedy for decades, and Nedelin himself perished in the blast. Despite government secrecy surrounding the incident the Soviet space program did re-evaluate safety measures during the following test flights to ensure the R-16 explosion was never repeated.

2. The Vostok 2 Incident: A Near-Fatal Catastrophe

After the huge success of the Vostok 1 mission, which saw Yuri Gagarin become the first human in space, the Soviet Union sought to follow up on this achievement quickly. The historic Vostok 2 mission was planned to launch just a few months later. It would have seen cosmonaut Gherman Titov orbit the Earth for an entire day, which is considerably longer than Gagarin’s brief flight. However, Titov’s experience was far more uncomfortable than that of Vostok 1’s.

Almost immediately after Titov entered Earth’s orbit and experienced the free fall, he began to feel violently ill. Titov suffered from acute space sickness, a condition caused by zero gravity, and was unable to consume his allocated meals. After a brief rest, Titov’s condition improved slightly, and he was able to broadcast part of his mission to the USSR. The ill-fated Vostok 2 mission almost ended in disaster when the reentry module failed to detach from the service module, and both spacecraft began to enter Earth’s atmosphere. The two modules shook violently upon reentry until the intense heat of the aerodynamic friction caused the straps holding the two modules together to burn up. Titov was ejected from the module and parachuted to safety but suffered a broken nose, among other minor injuries.

3. Soyuz 1: Vladimir Komarov’s Fatal Mission

The revolutionary Soyuz 1 spacecraft launched on April 23, 1967, intended to usher in a new era of Soviet space exploration. However, the mission ended in tragedy. Despite several unresolved technical difficulties leading up to the launch, veteran cosmonaut Vladimir Komarov was assigned to pilot Soyuz 1. Problems plagued the mission shortly after it launched, as a faulty solar panel mechanism meant that most of the spacecraft was underpowered and unable to perform basic functions in orbit.

After Komarov reported the numerous technical difficulties that he experienced on board the Soyuz 1, Soviet mission control decided to abort the mission and ordered Komarov to begin the reentry procedure. Tragically, as Komarov began entering the Earth’s atmosphere, the main parachute designed to slow the descent became tangled in the secondary parachute, and the Soyuz 1 spacecraft fell to Earth almost entirely unimpeded. The capsule crash-landed just outside the city of Orenburg, where a rescue team found the burned remains of Komarov and the reentry module. He was given a state funeral, and his ashes were interred at the Kremlin Wall cemetery on Red Square.

4. Soyuz 11: The First Deaths in Orbit

The Soyuz 11 mission began as a historic moment in the history of space travel. The spacecraft had successfully entered Earth’s orbit and docked with the Salyut 1 space station, the first manned outpost in space. The crew of the Soyuz 11, Georgi Dobrovolski, Viktor Patsayev, and Vladislav Volkov, had completed a 23-day stay at the station where they conducted various experiments on how the human body adapts to prolonged periods in space. However, on June 29, 1971, tragedy struck the three-man crew of the Soyuz 11 as they prepared to return home.

According to the mission logs, when the work compartment was jettisoned from the service module prior to reentry, all radio communications between the craft and the surface ceased. Because the Soyuz 11 spacecraft continued the reentry process without any apparent malfunction, the ground crew assumed the mission was proceeding as planned. The craft landed successfully in Karazhan in Kazakhstan, but there was no word from the crew on board. When the recovery team opened the crew module, they found all three cosmonauts deceased inside.

After an initial investigation, it became apparent that the men had asphyxiated inside the craft before re-entry. The cause was a loss of cabin pressure due to a faulty valve mechanism that had been opened after the explosive bolts separating the reentry module from the command module had fired simultaneously. After Soyuz 11, the valve system was completely redesigned, and all subsequent manned missions required cosmonauts to wear pressurized spacesuits during reentry in case of another depressurization incident.

5. Stranded in Siberia: The Voskhod 2 Incident

In many ways, the Voskhod 2 mission in March 1965 was a huge success. During the mission, cosmonaut Alexei Leonov performed the first spacewalk, a feat that stunned the world. However, the problems began soon afterward as Leonov struggled to return to the craft as his suit had expanded considerably during the spacewalk. After trial and error, the crew of the Voskhod 2 managed to get Leonov into the reentry module.

The problems didn’t end there. During the re-entry procedure, a navigational error caused the Voskhod 2 capsule to veer off course. This meant that the spacecraft landed in the Siberian wilderness, some 1,000 miles away from the intended landing site. While they were unharmed during reentry, Leonov and his crewmate, Pavel Belyayev, were forced to fend for themselves in the dense Siberian wilderness until rescue crew arrived two days later. The importance of emergency preparation was highlighted by this incident, and a new type of survival pistol was developed for Soviet space crews in case they found themselves in the Siberian wilderness.

6. The N-1 Rocket: The Failed Soviet Moonshot

The Soviet Union’s response to NASA’s Saturn V rocket, the N-1, was designed to carry a crew of cosmonauts to the moon and back. The program was plagued by a number of disastrous setbacks, none more serious than the incident on July 3, 1969, which saw an explosion occur during a second test flight.

After initially lifting off from the launchpad, a pump malfunction onboard one of the rocket’s engines caused an automatic shutdown just a few seconds after launch. The entire vehicle loaded with 2,000 tons of rocket fuel exploded as it crashed down onto the launchpad. The explosion was so severe that it crippled the Soviet lunar program and severely damaged the launch site. Several years later, the N-1 program was discontinued following a number of unsuccessful launches, effectively ending the Soviet Union’s moonshot hopes. As a result, it was the Americans who got to the moon first.

7. The Mars 96 Probe

The Soviet Union’s many Mars missions were beset with failure, with the most disastrous being the Mars 96 probe. With the collapse of the Soviet Union, the Russian Federation sought to re-establish its dominance in space exploration by completing a number of ambitious missions in the 1990s.

Mars 96 was one such mission that sought to use cutting-edge scientific equipment to investigate the Martian surface and atmosphere. Launched on November 16, 1996, the probe’s booster state malfunctioned soon after launch, and it crash-landed in the Pacific Ocean shortly afterward. Due to increasing political and economic pressures, this was one of the last significant attempts Russia made to launch a Martian probe.

8. The Phobos-Grunt Mission

Several years after the failed Mars 96 probe mission, Russia launched the Phobos-Grunt spacecraft in 2011 with the ambitious goal of collecting samples from Phobos, one of Mars’s moons. Initially, it was heralded as an ambitious mission that would signal the return of the Russian space program to its former glory.

However, in a similar fashion to the Mars 96 probe, the spacecraft propulsion system malfunctioned soon after launch, and it failed to exit Earth’s gravitational pull. After several unsuccessful attempts to save the mission, the spacecraft fell back to Earth and burned up in the atmosphere. A lack of quality control, a common problem during the post-Soviet era of Russian space exploration, was blamed for the Phobos-Grunt failure.

Sir Isaac Newton (1642–1726) is considered by many to be the greatest mind of the Scientific Revolution. In his private notes, Newton wrote mathematically what he thought the end times of the world order, or apostate Church, as it existed at the time, would look like. Instead of studying astronomic data to calculate this, he spent a lot of time on biblical scripture and alchemy in an attempt to work out when the corrupt church would fall, pointing to the calendar year 2060. 

The Hidden Archives and Decades of Study

The idea that Isaac Newton, a devout rationalist and student of empirical science, believed he could calculate this future event seems strange at first glance. And that’s why Newton never published these findings during his lifetime. He kept them hidden because he feared being ridiculed or losing his job. His calculations first came to light when a collection of private papers was sold at an auction in 1936. A British economist named John Maynard Keynes, in turn, bought them from dealers who had purchased them at the event. The papers are now digitized and archived at King’s College, Cambridge, and the National Library of Israel, among other institutions. 

Newton is believed to have spent decades studying and analyzing everything from alchemy recipes to the Book of Revelation, in an attempt to also unlock when Jesus would return to Earth. He became completely absorbed in secretly calculating the fall of the corrupt church. 

The papers were initially discovered in a portion of the archives that belonged to Newton’s family, before eventually being donated to various institutions. They represented the life’s work of a man who believed every part of the universe operated under a divine set of instructions, and that somewhere within the Bible was a formula for figuring out when the corrupt powers would end. Newton searched the Bible for these prophetic clues throughout his life, with the same intensity he used to calculate the effects of gravity.

The Mathematics of the Apocalypse

One of the timestamps which Newton took from the Book of Daniel was the cryptic phrase “time times and half a time.” The phrase refers to a period of suffering for the Jewish people. Newton believed it also pointed to a future time when the Christian church would be corrupted. Newton calculated this phrase to mean a period of 1260 days or roughly three and a half years. He used a popular method among 17th-century Bible scholars called the day-for-a-year principle. The principle assumed that one day in the text stood for one real year in history in prophecy.

He interpreted these 1260 days as 1260 literal years using the day-for-a-year principle. This way, he would arrive at his centuries-long deadline by setting the start date of this prophetic era to 800 AD, when both Charlemagne became Roman Emperor, and papal supremacy over world politics was solidified in Rome.

The Timeline of the Little Horn

Newton also chose 800 AD as the starting point because he believed that was the year that the Pope’s political power became corrupt. He believed that the corruption was the Little Horn described in the Bible. According to Newton, the year 800 marked the beginning of the Little Horn of the papacy, and he believed that key parts of Christianity had become corrupt because of political power ever since.

Adding 1260 years to 800 equaled 2060, the result of his calculation. Newton wrote down this calculation around the year 1705, which is confirmed by the original manuscript. He did not mean that he thought the world would suddenly cease to exist in a fiery explosion when he referred to the end of the corrupt age.

A Vision of Global Renewal

Newton believed that there would be a reset of worldly powers. He believed in a global removal of the corruption of the Catholic Church, a revelation of spiritual truths, and a return of Christ to usher in a new period of peace and prosperity. He believed that corrupt governments and false religious leaders would be removed and a new, peaceful 1000-year Kingdom of God would begin after the Battle of Armageddon. Newton stated that he knew the events were unlikely to begin before 2060. He saw no reason for them to begin sooner. He set 2060 as the earliest possible date. 2060 symbolized progress and renewal, not literal extinction.

From 1969 to 1979, US and Soviet negotiators worked on a set of comprehensive arms limitation treaties to regulate the nuclear arms race and reduce the threat of nuclear conflict. Two treaties were signed, but only one came into force. The negotiations, called the Strategic Arms Limitation Talks, were part of the process of détente and helped to facilitate nuclear disarmament after the end of the Cold War.

US and Soviet Nuclear Arsenals in the Late 1960s

Once the Soviet Union tested an atomic bomb in 1949 in the Kazakh SSR, it was inevitable that the Soviets and Americans were going to be engaged in a nuclear arms race. The fear that a major war could break out meant that both countries wanted to gain an advantage in their stock of nuclear weapons. They also experimented with different types of nuclear weapons: long-range, medium-range, fusion or fission, land, air, or sea-launched, etc. Even after the agreement reached between the Kennedy and Khrushchev governments in 1962 to deescalate the Cuban Missile Crisis, the spectre of armageddon remained.

The United States’ nuclear arsenal was at its peak during the late 1960s, and in 1969 the United States had 27,552 nuclear weapons of all types in its arsenal. From 1960 to 1966, the US launched a fleet of 41 nuclear-powered ballistic missile submarines each armed with 16 nuclear missiles. Despite the losses in the Vietnam War, the United States Air Force could field over 100 B-52 bombers carrying nuclear payloads. On land, the United States had launch sites all over the country that could target critical population centers in the USSR.

The Soviets were estimated to have 10,538 nuclear weapons in 1969. It is not clear exactly how many they had because they were intentionally quiet about the size of their nuclear arsenal. Like the US, they maintained a triad of air, land, and sea-launched weapons. In 1961, they tested the largest nuclear weapon in history, Tsar Bomba, in the Arctic Ocean. Moscow had plans to ramp up its arsenal.

Buildup to the Talks

As the Vietnam War raged and the Israelis defeated the Soviet-backed Arab states in the Six-Day War in 1967, Washington was growing very concerned about developments in Soviet nuclear capabilities. Because the US had a head start on testing and producing nuclear weapons, Washington’s arsenal was larger than Moscow’s, even when not counting the nuclear weapons possessed by America’s allies. Moscow wanted to close the gap and was preparing a program to rapidly increase their arsenal. The Soviets especially wanted to even the odds regarding stockpiles of Intercontinental Ballistic Missiles (ICBMs).

In January 1967, LBJ announced that the Soviets were building an air defense system that could shoot down American ICBMs near Moscow. This could give the USSR an advantage if they wanted to strike the US first. When LBJ met with Soviet Premier Alexei Kosygin in Glassboro, New Jersey, in June 1967, they talked about how to reduce nuclear tensions in light of the Six-Day War and America’s continued air raids over North Vietnam. They reached no major agreements, but kept a channel open between the two and promised to continue talking.

In 1968, several UN member states including the US and the USSR signed the Nuclear Nonproliferation Treaty, or NPT. The signatories stipulated that the nuclear powers would not ship nuclear weapons material to non-nuclear states, and the non-nuclear signatories would not try to gain access to them. However, the treaty did not denuclearize any state and many UN members did not sign. When Richard Nixon was elected president in 1968, he faced the same issue LBJ had; how to avert the resumption of the nuclear arms race that had paused after 1963.

The First Meetings of SALT I

President Nixon decided to continue his predecessor’s efforts to reach an agreement with the Soviets. The Sino-Soviet split helped give the United States leverage to use, while the Kremlin also believed that they could use America’s struggles in Vietnam as leverage. On November 17, 1969, US delegate Gerard Smith met with Soviet Deputy Foreign Minister Vladimir Semyonov at the Smolna Building in Helsinki, Finland. The Finns, officially neutral in the Cold War, offered to mediate the first round of the Strategic Arms Limitation Talks. There was hope that some kind of agreement could be reached.

The US government’s main goal was to convince the Soviets of two things: their overwhelming superiority in nuclear capabilities and their unwillingness to pursue a first-strike policy. The Soviets in turn wanted the Americans to know about the development of MIRV capabilities: missiles that could launch dozens of nuclear armed submunitions. They were hostile to any suggestions of foreign inspection of nuclear launch sites because they worried about espionage threats. Both parties tried to argue that their Anti-Ballistic Missile systems were not designed to give them a first-strike advantage.

The talks continued in a relatively respectful manner, however, not much progress was made initially. Both parties dug in their heels, fearing that concessions would lead to a lopsided deal. The next round of talks was scheduled in Vienna, where the Austrians hoped to mediate a successful round of talks. This set the stage for two years of talks on reducing the number of ICBMs and Anti-Ballistic Missile systems that either side possessed.

SALT I Signed Between Nixon and Brezhnev

From 1970 to 1972, members of Nixon’s and Leonid Brezhnev’s teams hashed out details for a comprehensive treaty targeting ICBM and ABM production. Familiar sticking points remained: whether there would be reciprocity in the negotiations, foreign inspections, and other issues. There was no discussion about reducing the launch vehicles for nuclear weapons. Additionally, the Soviets did not consider nuclear weapons aimed at countries in Europe or Asia to be strategic nuclear arms, but the United States did and did not want to jeopardize its commitments to its European NATO allies.

On May 20, 1971, the White House announced that a breakthrough had been reached. Nixon aimed to sign an agreement limiting the production and deployment of ABM systems. The Soviets were also interested in this. After two and a half years of negotiations, Nixon flew with members of his staff to Moscow and signed the first SALT Treaty. This treaty had two main components: the Anti-Ballistic Missile Treaty and the Interim Agreement on Strategic Offensive Arms.

The Interim Agreement paused additional ICBM deployment and production for a period of five years pending an additional SALT treaty. The ABM Treaty was more durable and was intended to be permanent. It did not ban the use of ABM systems, but it did limit both parties to deploy two fixed, ground-based defense sites of 100 missile interceptors each. One site could protect the national capital, while the second could be used to guard an ICBM field. By signing this, both countries gave hope for additional nuclear talks.

SALT II Negotiations

The success behind the SALT I talks inspired American and Soviet negotiators to continue working toward another agreement. President Gerald Ford’s administration pursued talks about reducing ICBM deployments in line with the terms of the Interim Agreement from SALT I. However, he was unable to conclude an agreement due to internal opposition from hawkish Republicans opposed to détente and the election of Jimmy Carter in 1976. Carter’s administration hoped to enshrine the Interim Agreement into a permanent treaty.

Talks continued in Vienna even as détente started to break down. The United States was no longer worried about the Vietnam War after the withdrawal of US troops in 1973 and the fall of Saigon in 1975. However, it was worried about a possible Soviet arms buildup in Europe and hoped to deflect criticism from the hawks in the Republican Party who opposed détente. Following the signing of the Vladivostok Accords between the Ford and Brezhnev governments, which banned the construction of new ICBM launch sites, the Carter administration pushed for a comprehensive deal reducing ICBM quantities in both countries.

On June 18, 1979, the US and Soviet governments announced that they had reached an agreement. The SALT II Treaty established parity between the two nations in terms of nuclear weapons delivery systems. It also limited the number of MIRV missiles used by both countries. However, it did not address other elements of the American or Soviet arsenals. Carter and Brezhnev met in Vienna and signed the deal in spite of opposition from hardliners in both countries. It was believed that SALT III would address long-range nuclear bombers in the future.

Collapse of Both Agreements

Carter’s successes were undermined by the increasing willingness of the Soviets to use force to resolve their problems. In 1979, Soviet forces invaded Afghanistan to prop up its communist government. The United States was infuriated and fruitlessly demanded the Soviets halt their military operation. Hawks, especially the new Republican neocons, felt vindicated in their belief that only force could stop the Soviets. They helped Ronald Reagan get elected and pushed for a hardline approach towards the Soviets.

The Senate refused to ratify the SALT II Treaty because many senators felt that the agreement was in favor of the Soviets. Senator Henry Jackson was especially opposed to SALT II. A conservative Democrat, he demanded that the US push for a more aggressive approach towards Moscow. At the same time, the Supreme Soviet in Moscow never ratified the treaty either. This collapsed any nuclear arms talks until Mikhail Gorbachev came to power in 1985.

The START treaties signed between the US and Russian governments in the 1990s and 2000s built on the earlier progress from detente. However, nonproliferation efforts collapsed again under the weight of increasing tensions between Washington and Moscow. Washington withdrew from the ABM Treaty in 2001 and the Intermediate-Range Nuclear Forces Treaty in 2019. Russia’s invasion of Ukraine extinguished any efforts to restart nuclear talks, similar to the Afghanistan invasion in 1979. While anti-nuclear treaties helped to reduce US-Soviet tensions during the latter stages of the Cold War, they did not prove durable once neither Moscow nor Washington wanted to keep to the terms.

Amidst the secretive atmosphere of the Cold War, the Soviet Union closed off entire cities to the outside world. These settlements were hidden from maps and road signs and were largely inaccessible to outsiders. Closed cities in the USSR were home to centers of military, scientific, or industrial activity that were often tied to the Soviet nuclear weapons program. While many of these closed cities have been opened to the outside world, their history and purpose remain shrouded in mystery.

1. Arzamas-16 (Present-day Sarov)

Arzamas-16, known today as the city of Sarov, was the Soviet Union’s primary nuclear weapons research center. As such, it was the USSR’s equivalent to Los Alamos in the United States. First established in 1946, the city played a critical role during the development of the Soviet Union’s first nuclear bomb, which was successfully built in 1949. Arzamas-16 is located in the Nizhny Novgorod Oblast and was completely sealed off from the outside world. To make sure that no outsiders got a glimpse of what was taking place inside the city, it was surrounded by barbed wire and heavily guarded by soldiers.

The legion of scientists and engineers who lived and worked in Arzamas-16 enjoyed a quality of life that was considerably better than those in the rest of the USSR. Despite its isolation, the city boasted modern comforts, frequent cultural events, and higher wages, which made it an attractive destination for anyone lucky enough to be granted access to live there.

After the collapse of the Soviet Union, Arzamas-16 was renamed Sarov by Boris Yeltsin in 1995. Today, the town of Sarov remains a closed city and is under the control of Russia’s state nuclear corporation, Rosatom. All visitors to the town require special permission, and their movements are closely monitored.

2. Krasnoyarsk-26 (Present-day Zheleznogorsk)

Krasnoyarsk-26, today known as Zheleznogorsk, was a closed city in the Soviet Union established in 1950 for the production of weapons-grade plutonium. Located in a remote Siberian forest region of Yenisei, the underground facilities of the city were kept hidden from aerial surveillance and potential enemy attacks. Built to produce the materials necessary to create the Soviet Union’s nuclear arsenal, the city was built around the Mining and Chemical Combine, which housed a number of nuclear reactors and reprocessing plants that were buried underground. For decades, these facilities produced the plutonium necessary to fuel the Cold War arms race.

While those living and working in Krasnoyarsk-26 were closely monitored, they enjoyed a quality of life that differed greatly from that of their Soviet comrades. While some towns in the USSR struggled to supply even the most basic goods to their residents, the shops and leisure facilities of Krasnoyarsk-26 were kept fully stocked. After the collapse of the Soviet Union, Krasnoyarsk-26 became Zheleznogorsk, a town that specialized in the treatment and storage of nuclear waste. However, it still remains a closed city, and no unauthorized access is allowed.

3. Molotovsk (Present-day Severodvinsk)

Molotovsk, known today as Severodvinsk, was a closed city that played an important role in the Soviet Navy. Established in 1938, Molotovsk was primarily home to the various construction facilities that built and maintained the fleet of Soviet nuclear submarines. As a result, the city became one of the most important hubs for the Soviet Navy and played a key role in the development of the USSR’s strategic submarine fleet during the Cold War arms race.

The shipyard at Molotovsk was the largest in the Soviet Union and was responsible for building nearly all of the USSR’s nuclear-powered submarines. Because of its sensitive facilities, the city was heavily guarded by the Red Army and kept off-limits to outsiders. Today, the city of Molotovsk, now known as Severodvinsk, remains largely closed to unauthorized individuals as it continues to play a vital role in the production and maintenance of the Russian Federation’s nuclear submarine fleet.

4. Chelyabinsk-40 (Present-day Ozyorsk)

Chelyabinsk-40, known today as Ozyorsk, was one of the most notorious closed cities of the Soviet Union due to its role in the production of weapons-grade plutonium and its proximity to the Mayak Production Zone. Founded in 1945, the town of Ozyorsk was vital in the development of the Soviet Union’s first nuclear weapon. Notably, the town was also the site of one of the world’s worst nuclear incidents, the Kyshtym disaster of 1957.

The Kyshtym disaster took place in 1957 when a large blast rocked a nuclear waste storage area near the Mayak nuclear facility and released huge amounts of radioactive material into the surrounding area. While there remain conflicting reports surrounding the nature of the incident, the Soviet government has publicly admitted that the explosion was caused by a failure in the cooling system at a nearby open-air nuclear waste storage area. This resulted in a chemical explosion that was equal in size to several tons of conventional explosives. The fire was so severe that it produced a column of radioactive debris that spread high into the atmosphere and distributed radioactive fallout across an area of thousands of square kilometers. To cover up the incident, the Soviet government designated the most contaminated areas as a new nature reserve. Today, the area is known as the Eastern Ural Radioactive Trace region.

After the initial explosion, the immediate contamination affected local infrastructure, residential areas, agriculture, and all buildings in the nearby city of Ozyorsk. Notably, workers who were dispatched to the Mayak facility to put out the blaze unknowingly brought back radioactive material in their clothing and spread fallout across the entire city as they returned home.

5. Norilsk

Norilsk, originally established as a Gulag labor camp during Stalin’s Great Purge, is a unique Soviet closed city in that it was primarily an industrial hub and not related to the Soviet nuclear weapons program. During the Soviet Union’s rush to rebuild after World War II, the vast mineral resources located in and around Norilsk made it a strategically important city.

Even after Stalin’s death, Norilsk remained largely closed off to the rest of the Soviet Union due to its industrial significance and strategic location. While the residents of Norilsk enjoyed modern amenities, the environmental impact of the decades of mineral mining has led to Norilsk becoming one of the most heavily polluted places on Earth. Today, Norilsk is no longer a closed city but access to the town is still highly restricted, and non-Russian residents are largely prohibited from entering.

6. Zvezdny Gorodok

Zvezdny Gorodok, also known as Star City, is a unique closed city that served as the heart of the Soviet space program. Star City was established in the Moscow region in the 1960s as a base to train, house, and observe the cosmonauts and engineers who made the Soviet space program possible. Notably, Star City was the training ground that Yuri Gagarin used to prepare for his historic flight into space. Today, the Gagarin Cosmonaut Training Center remains one of the world’s most prestigious cosmonaut/astronaut training facilities.

During the height of the Cold War, the city was shrouded in secrecy, and its exact location was kept secret from the rest of the USSR. Today, Zvezdny Gorodok is no longer a closed city and even hosted contingents of NASA astronauts as they trained to fly on board a Russian Soyuz capsule to the International Space Station.

7. Pripyat

Pripyat is perhaps one of the most tragic closed cities in the history of the USSR. Originally established in 1970 to house the engineers and workers of the nearby Chernobyl Nuclear Power Plant, the city had a growing population of almost 50,000 people until April 26, 1986. On that day, reactor number 4 at the Chernobyl Nuclear Power Plant exploded during testing of the reactor’s safety mechanisms.

The explosion released huge quantities of radioactive material into the atmosphere that contaminated large areas of the Soviet Union. The contamination released by the explosion of reactor number 4 and the ensuing blaze was equivalent to approximately one hundred Hiroshima bombs. In response, the Soviet Union established an exclusion zone around the power plant, and Pripyat was permanently evacuated. Today Pripyat is a pseudo tourist attraction and an impromptu nature reserve, with the crumbling concrete tower blocks providing a permanent reminder about the dangers of radiation.

8. Chelyabinsk-70 (Present-day Troitsk)

Chelyabinsk-70, known today as Troitsk, was a secret Soviet city established in the late 1940s as a part of the Soviet Union’s race to build a nuclear weapon. Located in the remote Siberian region of Chelyabinsk, the city served as a center for the design and manufacture of nuclear weapons in parallel to the closed city of Arzamas-16. The city attracted some of the Soviet Union’s most brilliant scientific minds.

The residents of the closed city worked in absolute secrecy on advanced nuclear technologies such as the hydrogen bomb. However, similar to many other closed cities, their tightly controlled environment afforded them higher living standards, modern housing, prestigious schools, and leisure facilities. Since the collapse of the Soviet Union, the city has been known as Troitsk. The area remains closed to the outside world and continues to play a role in research and development.