Watch Nowġ968 (7 minutes to midnight): A turbulent geopolitical period resulted in a substantial five-minute addition to the clock. Sarah Agha steps inside a secret Cold War bunker - to be used in the event of a nuclear attack. Despite tense nuclear standoffs like the Cuban Missile Crisis, the Doomsday Clock assessment heralds the treaty as an “encouraging event” and knocks a further five minutes off the clock. But by 1960 there was evidently an impression that measures were being taken to dampen tensions and allay the threat of nuclear catastrophe.ġ963 (12 minutes to midnight): America and the Soviet Union sign the Partial Test Ban Treaty, prohibiting all test detonations of nuclear weapons except for those conducted underground. The clock is closer to midnight that it will be at any point until 2020.ġ960 (7 minutes to midnight): As the Cold War developed the 1950s saw a succession of nuclear close calls, such as the 1956 Suez Crisis and 1958 Lebanon Crisis. The US tested its first thermonuclear device in 1952, followed by the Soviet Union a year later. While the overarching trend has undoubtedly been towards heightening danger, the clock has been set back on eight occasions, reflecting a perceived reduction of catastrophic threat.ġ947 (7 minutes to midnight): Two years after the atomic bombing of Hiroshima and Nagasaki, the Doomsday Clock is first set.ġ949 (3 minutes to midnight): The Soviet Union tests its first atomic bomb and the clock leaps forward 4 minutes to reflect the commencement of the nuclear arms race.ġ953 (2 minutes to midnight): The nuclear arms race escalates with the emergence of hydrogen bombs. Looking back at a timeline of the Doomsday Clock offers an interesting overview of 75 years of geopolitical ebbs and flows. The evolution of the Doomsday Clock through the years These aim to assess the current state of global imperilment and decide if the world is safer or more dangerous than it was the previous year. Since Rabinovitch’s death, the clock has been set by a panel of experts comprising members of the Bulletin’s Science and Security Board and its Board of Sponsors, which includes more than a dozen Nobel laureates and other international experts in key technologies.Īny decision to adjust the clock emerges from biannual panel debates. Rabinowitch set the clock forward four minutes to 23:57. The Soviet Union had tested its first atomic bomb and the nuclear arms race was just hitting its stride. His first adjustment, in October 1949, reflected an increasingly parlous set of circumstances. Who sets the Doomsday Clock?įrom its conception until his death in 1973, the clock was set by Manhattan Project scientist and Bulletin editor Eugene Rabinowitch, largely according to the current state of nuclear affairs. As a result, the Doomsday Clock first emerged as a graphic concept on the cover of the Bulletin’s June 1947 edition. Two years after the atomic bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki, this community of nuclear experts was clearly troubled by the implications of nuclear warfare. The origins of the Doomsday Clock date to 1947, when a group of atomic researchers who had been involved with developing nuclear weapons for the United States’ Manhattan Project began publishing a magazine called Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists. Image Credit: United States Department of Energy, Public domain, via Wikimedia Commons The Trinity test of the Manhattan Project was the first detonation of a nuclear weapon
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