This Day in History: 1958-06-09

Nuclear Bombs for Peace On this day in 1958, the US Atomic Energy Commission asks to US Bureau of Land Management to set aside over one million acres of Alaska’s Ogotoruk Valley in order to test what Edward Teller called “the great art of geographic engineering, to reshape the earth to your pleasure.” A series of nuclear detonations would create a harbor at the site, about 100 miles north of the Arctic Circle at Cape Thompson on the Alaskan coast. The idea was part of Operation Plowshare. Also see Douglas L. Vandegraft’s Project Chariot site. Both Chariot and the larger Plowshare were called off due to concerns about radiation contamination over larger areas.