Word: tanked
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Dates: during 1950-1959
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...trigger was a Frondizi bill, passed by Congress, giving the government permission to sell or lease a featherbedded, government-owned meatpacking plant. Workers at the plant listened to a harangue by a top Peronista, then chained the gate and barricaded themselves in. Frondizi did not hesitate. Using a Sherman tank as a battering ram, his troops marched in and took back the plant. Sixty-two Peronista-dominated unions went out on a protest strike, followed by 19 Communist-dominated unions and 32 independent unions...
...closely guarded technical area of Los Alamos Scientific Laboratory is a building on the mysteriously named DP Site. In one of its rooms Technician Cecil W. Kelley, 38, was working alone last week, adding a solvent to a 225-gal. tank. It was a routine part of a process to recover plutonium from waste materials. During his ten years at Los Alamos he had done the same chore about 75 times. This time was different. When he turned on the stirring apparatus, a bright blue flash bloomed out of the tank...
Roderick Day, a technician working in the next room, saw the flash, felt a slight shock, heard a slight noise, then a louder, rumbling one. He dashed into the tank room, saw that Kelley had run outdoors and collapsed a few feet from the door. "I'm burning up!" cried Kelley. Day carried him to a shower room, pulling some master switches on the way, and showered him with water. Then an ambulance took him to the hospital...
...original cause of the accident is still unknown. Presumably, enough plutonium somehow got into the tank to support a fission chain reaction. The resulting burst of radiation ionized the air and caused the blue flash. The reacting liquid probably boiled, separating the plutonium and stopping the reaction in a few seconds. That was too late for Kelley...
...heaviest, Atlas is probably the biggest object that has orbited. Overall, it is 85 ft. long, 10 ft. in diameter. It is a delicate beast. Its main body is a fuel tank of bubble-thin metal. This bulk makes it easy to see, but it also creates atmospheric drag. For this reason, its estimated life is only 20 days...