This video was made possible thanks to our
friends over at Hollywood Health and Society who sponsored this video. Hey there! Welcome to Life Noggin. Just a heads up I'm going to mispronounce
nuclear in this video. I never seem to get it right, and the viewers
that have been with me for a while already know this. Sorry in advance. Nuclear bombs are devastating weapons—and
even though the world's stockpile of nukes has decreased considerably since its peak
in the mid-1980's, there are still over ten thousand nuclear weapons around the world. That's a lot when you think about the power
of a single nuclear blast… and the power of human error. Since the 1950s, a bunch of dangerous incidents
involving nuclear weapons have occurred around the world. In fact, they're frequent enough that we actually
have names for different types of nuclear incidents depending on their severity. For example, lost or missing bombs are called
"empty quivers" and breaches in security and transportation of nuclear weapons are referred
to as "bent spears." But perhaps the scariest of all are the "broken
arrows," or events where a nuclear bomb was damaged, leaked, caught on fire, or even launched. One of the first broken arrows occurred in
Canada in 1950, when a B-50 aircraft suffered engine trouble and, as a matter of protocol,
dropped a nuclear bomb over the St. Lawrence River. This wasn’t just out in the middle of nowhere
either — it happened around 300 miles from the major city of Montreal. The bomb detonated in the air, but fortunately
its plutonium core had been removed prior to the flight so it didn't cause a nuclear
explosion. However, nearly 100 pounds of uranium were
still strewn about nearby as a result. Just seven years later, in 1957, something
similar happened down in New Mexico. While in transit to the nearby Kirtland Air
Force Base, a B-36 aircraft accidentally dropped a hydrogen bomb over Albuquerque. It should be noted that a hydrogen bomb can
be up to 1,000 times more powerful than an atomic bomb due to its use of fusion to produce
explosive energy. Albuquerque was very lucky when no /nuclear/
detonation occurred, but the bomb’s conventional explosives that were meant to trigger the
device still went off, leaving a crater that was over 12 feet deep and 25 feet in diameter. This was one of the scarier accidents, as
some believe the bomb might have been one of the most powerful ever made. It was thought to have had an explosive yield
of around 10 megatons. To put that in perspective, this single hydrogen
bomb had the same explosive power as around 600 Hiroshima bombs . According to NUKEMAP,
an online tool that uses unclassified data to estimate the effects of nuclear weapons,
if a 10 megaton hydrogen bomb were dropped over Albuquerque today, it would result in
over half a million fatalities and injuries, with the radioactive fallout reaching as far
as Nebraska. Fast forward to 1980 at a Strategic Air Command
silo near Damascus, Arkansas. An airman was performing some routine maintenance
on a Titan II Missile when he dropped a wrench socket between a work platform and the weapon
itself. The socket fell 70 or 80 feet and pierced
the missile, causing it to leak toxic fuel, which ultimately triggered the missile to
explode—and eject its nuclear warhead. Luckily, the warhead did not detonate. If it had, the results would have been catastrophic. But at least we know what happened to those
bombs. There are multiple instances of lost or missing
nuclear weapons—so-called "empty quivers." In 1961, a US bomber broke up over some swampy
farmland in North Carolina, dropping not one but two powerful nuclear bombs. One was fully recovered, but the other sank
down into the muddy terrain and its uranium core was never found. It’s likely still buried there to this very
day. And remember, these are just a few of the
nuclear weapons incidents that have been officially recognized. There could be even more we don't know about! Still, all of these cases highlight how close
we’ve come to unintended nuclear catastrophe. That’s pretty troubling when you consider
that there are an estimated 14,575 nuclear weapons around the world today, and as long
as these weapons exist, there's always a danger that one — or more — will result in a
nuclear detonation. Even if it's by mistake. So can humans just like, be careful? Ya know? Cause I really like existing. Are there any other events in history that
you'd like us to talk about next? Leave it in the comment section below, or
ask me your most burning question. Thank you so much to our friends over at Hollywood
Health, and Society. To find out more about what they do, and see
how you can help their great causes, click the link in the description. As always, my name is Blocko, this has been
Life Noggin, don't forget to keep on thinking!
