The Bomb

BBC World Service

How the nuclear bomb shaped world history. The scientists who raced to build weapons, the spies who stole the technology and the superpowers who grappled with deployment.

In Season 3, nuclear war is terrifyingly close. Can the superpowers of the Soviet Union and the USA prevent apocalypse? Nina Khrushcheva and Max Kennedy, relatives of Soviet Premier Nikita Khrushchev and US President John F Kennedy, tell the story of the Cuban Missile Crisis.

Season 2 is about Klaus Fuchs, the brilliant young physicist from a pacifist German family whose spying for Russia changed history.

Season 1 tells the story of Leo Szilard, and the scientist’s discovery of the lethal potential for nuclear weapons in the race to beat Nazi Germany.

Categories: Education

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If journalism is the first draft of history, what happens if that draft turns out to be flawed? The History Bureau revisits the defining stories of our times with the reporters who first covered them. What did they get right first time around? And, in the chaos and confusion of unfolding events, what did they miss?

Season 1: Putin and the Apartment Bombs. In September 1999, just weeks after a 46-year-old Vladimir Putin became Prime Minister, four bombs blew up four apartment buildings across Russia, killing hundreds of people while they slept. The attacks plunged the country into panic. Families fled their homes. Residents patrolled their blocks around the clock. An entire nation paralyzed by fear. But who did it? It's a mystery that has fuelled some chilling theories. The government blamed Chechen militants. Many reporters agreed. But then the whispers started. Was something even more sinister going on?

If you're in the UK, listen first to The History Bureau on BBC Sounds - or elsewhere in the world, listen on BBC.com or wherever you get your podcasts.