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Cold War

The spycatcher in the disguise he wore when he testified in court

The FBI’s Fake Russian Agent Reveals His Secrets

In an exclusive interview, a retired FBI agent who posed as a KGB officer finally spills the beans about his greatest sting operations

Scores of lives were lost while building the 816 Nuclear Plant, a long-abandoned nuclear project now open to the public.

Cool Finds

Tour the World’s Biggest Manmade Cave in China

The 816 Nuclear Plant stands as a reminder of a paranoid past

U.S. Ambassador to Russia, George F. Kennan, chats with a newsman after the Russian government told the U.S. State Department that Kennan must be recalled immediately. The Russians charged that the ambassador made completely false statements hostile to the Soviet Union. At the time, Russia demanded his recall (three days ago) Kennan was in Geneva, where he'd been visiting his daughter who is a student at the International School. U.S. Secretary of State Dean Acheson called the Russian charges, outrageous.

George Kennan’s Love of Russia Inspired His Legendary “Containment” Strategy

It’s impossible to overstate the impact the American diplomat had on the United States’ Cold War policy

The Evpatoria radio telescope RT-70 and the Long Range Space Communications Center, which were used for one of the most ambitious efforts at extraterrestrial communication.

How a Couple of Guys Built the Most Ambitious Alien Outreach Project Ever

You might think it takes vast governmental resources to launch an extraterrestrial communication effort. Nope

Today Santiago de Cuba, which lies at the foot of the Sierra Maestra, is a bustling cultural capital.

Tony Perrottet's Cuba

How Cuba Remembers Its Revolutionary Past and Present

On the 60th anniversary of Fidel Castro’s secret landing on Cuba’s southern shore, our man in Havana journeys into the island’s rebel heart

An solar storm erupts on April 16, 2012, captured by NASA's Solar Dynamics Observatory in the 304 Angstrom wavelength.

New Research

The Solar Storm That Nearly Set the Cold War Ablaze

How radio interference from a 1967 solar storm spooked the U.S. military—and launched space weather forecasting

Move over, tortoises: These sharks take the prize for oldest living vertebrate.

New Research

These Ridiculously Long-Lived Sharks Are Older Than the United States, and Still Living It Up

The lifespans of these marine methuselahs may double those of oldest living tortoises, a creative dating method finds

What secrets do those lonely ice sheets hold?

Age of Humans

A Radioactive Cold War Military Base Will Soon Emerge From Greenland’s Melting Ice

They thought the frozen earth would keep it safely hidden. They were wrong

Cool Finds

The KGB’s Favorite Restaurant Reopens in Moscow

Aragvi, the haunt of Soviet-era celebrities and spies opens after a 13-year absence and $20 million renovation

The Castle Bravo test at Bikini Atoll was more than 1,000 times more powerful than the bomb the United States dropped on Hiroshima.

New Research

The Marshall Islands Are Becoming Less Nuclear

A new study finds that the abandoned nuclear test sites aren’t much more radioactive than Central Park

The bombing site as seen from above.

Cool Finds

During the Cold War, the Air Force Dropped an Unarmed Nuke on South Carolina

Amazingly, none of the Gregg family of Mars Bluff were seriously hurt, not even the cat

Is Europe Returning to Pre Cold War Divisions?

Author Robert D. Kaplan notes the beginnings of a complex map, caused by Russian revisionism, the refugee crisis and a structural economic crisis in the EU

Lee Harvey Oswald, center, handing out fliers. According to a conspiracy theory floated by the National Enquirer, the unidentified man on the left wearing a black tie is the father of Senator Ted Cruz.

Trending Today

A Brief History of Lee Harvey Oswald’s Connection to Cuba

For over 50 years, conspiracy theorists have linked JFK’s assassin to Fidel Castro’s Cuba

The Slovak Radio Building, an inverted pyramid completed in 1983, has been called “one of the ugliest buildings in the world.” Recording studios at the center are surrounded by outward-facing offices. Its heavy weight and rough texture seem to capture the grim, waning years of Communist Party rule.

Is Bratislava’s Communist-Era Architecture Worth Preserving?

For residents of Slovakia’s capital, Cold War structures recall a painful past

Much of the bunker looks the same as it did when it was fully functional.

Switzerland

Switzerland’s Historic Bunkers Get a New Lease on Life

As the shadow of war fades, the country’s former fallout shelters now house everything from museums to cheese factories

Trending Today

Russia Wants to Turn Old Missiles Into an Asteroid Defense System

One of the world’s deadliest missiles could become a planetary life-saver

A free-standing, double-hulled steel shelter was installed beneath the front yard of Mr. and Mrs. Murland E. Anderson of Ft. Wayne, Indiana.

Dig Into the Nuclear Era’s Homegrown Fallout Shelters

In 1955, the head of Civil Defense urged everyone to build an underground shelter “right now”

A work by Pavel Ilie at the Romania Postmodernism Museum's "Before & After" exhibition.

Cool Finds

This Postmodern Art Captures a Tiny Moment of Hope During Romania’s Communist Years

Learn about Romania’s “unfrozen years” at Bucharest’s Postmodernism Museum

Cool Finds

When Rock Was Banned in the Soviet Union, Teens Took to Bootlegged Recordings on X-Rays

Teens snuck jazz and rock into the U.S.S.R. on records made of old x-rays

Soviet Leader Mikhail Gorbachev and President Ronald Reagan at the Geneva Summit.

Cool Finds

Reagan and Gorbachev Agreed to Pause the Cold War in Case of an Alien Invasion

The 40th President of the United States was a big science-fiction fan

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