← Back to the front page

America Wanted to Nuke the Moon and Other Weird History

Khalid Elhassan October 15, 2020 32 min

United States - List of nuclear weapons tests of China — Nuking the Moon. Stillness in the Storm

18. A Weird Scheme to Get Help

Vulcan’s residents pleaded for years with county, state, and federal officials to repair their rickety bridge. However, their pleas fell on deaf ears, and they were consistently ignored by the powers that be. In the meantime, their bridge kept on deteriorating, and becoming an ever greater hazard to life and limb. Feeling forsaken by their own government, the Vulcanites opted for a weird and drastic move that soon garnered international headlines.

In 1977, Vulcan’s mayor wrote the Soviet embassy in Washington, DC, as well as officials in communist East Germany, describing Vulcan’s plight and requesting foreign aid to build a bridge. The Soviets jumped on the opportunity to embarrass the US and dispatched journalists to Vulcan. By interviewing and broadcasting the locals’ woes, the Soviets finally brought attention to the ignored community.

Written by

Khalid Elhassan

A lifelong history buff, I developed a particular passion for WW2 history as a child, when I spent hours listening to my grandfather, enraptured, as he recounted his wartime experiences in the British East African Campaign and with the British 8th Army in North Africa.

I graduated with a history BA from George Mason University, then went on to get a JD from the University of Virginia School of Law. After lawyering for a decade, I moved to sunny Rio de Janeiro and a less demanding career, opening a tourism agency in Copacabana.

A big chunk of my free time is spent blogging (you can follow me on Quora https://www.quora.com/profile/Khalid-Elhassan ) or freelance writing, mostly about my favorite subject, history.