The Mysteries of History (March 28 Edition)
Spanish Civil War; Three Mile Island
“Those who cannot remember the past are condemned to repeat it.” — Spanish-American philosopher George Santayana, 1905
“He is free to evade reality, he is free to unfocus his mind and stumble blindly down any road he pleases, but not free to avoid the abyss he refuses to see.” — Alice O’Connor, 1961
1939 — Spanish Civil War Ends
public domain images from wikimedia commons
The Spanish Civil War, which began in 1936, ended on this date in 1939, a few months before Hitler invaded Poland, starting World War 2.
The Nationalist (right-wing, fascist) group led by Francisco Franco, banked by the wealthy, the Catholic church, and the military, defeated the Republican (left-wing, communists).
The Nationalists were aided and abetted by Germany and Italy, the Republicans by the USSR and various groups from other countries, including such famous supporters as American writer Ernest Hemingway (1899-1961) and British writer Eric Arthur Blair (“George Orwell”, 1903-1950), who was shot in the neck during the war.
In 1940, Hemingway published For Whom the Bells Toll, a novel about the Spanish Civil War. Blair/Orwell published his prescient Animal Farm in 1945 and his dystopian and prophetic 1984 in 1949.
Perhaps as many as a million people died during the Civil War, the most costly war in terms of lives lost that Spain ever fought.
Questions: What did Hemingway do during the war? Did Blair/Orwell, who died the year after its publication, have any inkling that his novel 1984 would be as popular as it became? How long did Spain remain fascist? How did that change? On which side did the Basques fight in the Civil War?
1979 — Three Mile Island Meltdown
public domain image from wikimedia commons
The following is what I wrote about Three Mile Island in my book Still Casting Shadows: A Shared Mosaic of U.S. History — Volume 2: 1914-2006:
On March 28th, blind faith in U.S. technology, big business, and govern ment regulation was put to a severe test when a nuclear reactor at Three Mile Island in Harrisburg, Pennsylvania lost coolant water. The result was an uncontrolled nuclear chain reaction, generating tremendous heat, which initi ated a partial meltdown of the reactor’s intensely radioactive core. Nuclear power had been controversial even before the accident. Seen as an inexpensive and safe way to produce energy by some, others questioned its safety. A bizarre coincidence was the fact that a movie depicting a nuclear plant accident, The China Syndrome, had been filmed just prior to the accident. Radiation had been released into the atmosphere, and Pennsylvania gover nor Dick Thornburgh warned all residents to remain indoors, and pregnant women to evacuate the area entirely. Fortunately, backup safety features in the plant did prevent an even more major disaster, on the scale of the one that would strike Chernobyl, Ukraine in 1986. Although no one was directly hurt at the time of the accident, radioactivity was released into the atmosphere over the next several days. Some scientists estimated that the radioactivity would ultimately cause thousands of cancer deaths. The government’s official report begged to differ, though. The President’s Commission concluded: “There will either be no case of cancer or the number of cases will be so small that it will never be possible to detect them.”
In the middle of the night on this date in 1979, a pressure valve failed to close, leading to a series of events resulting in the meltdown. This may remind you of Benjamin Franklin’s caution about the importance of seemingly minor matters:
For the want of a nail the shoe was lost,
For the want of a shoe the horse was lost,
For the want of a horse the rider was lost,
For the want of a rider the battle was lost,
For the want of a battle the kingdom was lost,
And all for the want of a horseshoe-nail.
Besides the lacking nail (the pressure valve failing to close), human error also contributed, because operators shut off the emergency cooling pumps which had been activated due to being confused by seemingly contradictory readings of their instruments.
At 8 am, four hours after the pressure valve failure which precipitated the disaster, the public became aware of the problem. Ultimately, a complete meltdown was avoided, but the plant remained offline and public confidence in nuclear energy, which was supposed to be clean and cost-efficient, greatly suffered.
There are plans to reopen Three Mile Island in 2028.
Questions: Would you want to live next to a nuclear power plant? How far away would you have to be to feel safe? Would you evacuate if a voluntary evacuation warning was given (for any reason)? Would you evacuate if a mandatory evacuation order was given (for any reason)? Who, if anybody, do you blame for the incident? Why did President Jimmy Carter visit Three Mile Island during the incident, and why was he especially qualified to examine and assess the situation?
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