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Automatic tube loader of B Reactor at the HEW

The Hanford Engineer Works (HEW) was a nuclear production complex in Benton County in the US state of Washington, established in early 1943 as part of the Manhattan Project during World War II. Plutonium manufactured at the HEW was used in the atomic bomb detonated in the Trinity test on 16 July 1945, and the Fat Man bomb used in the bombing of Nagasaki on 9 August 1945. DuPont was the prime contractor for its design, construction and operation. The land acquisition was one of the largest in US history. The construction workforce reached a peak of nearly 45,000 in June 1944. B Reactor, the world's first full-scale plutonium production nuclear reactor, went critical in September 1944, followed by D and F Reactors in December 1944 and February 1945, respectively. The HEW suffered an outage on 10 March 1945 due to a Japanese balloon bomb. The total cost of the HEW up to December 1946 was more than $348 million (equivalent to $4.1 billion in 2023). (Full article...)

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Did you know ...

H. J. Lovink Pumping Station

... that the H. J. Lovink Pumping Station (pictured), a national monument of the Netherlands, was used to reclaim the Flevopolder?
... that during the 1899–1900 peasant unrest in Bulgaria, some troops refused orders to fire on the protesters?
... that the winner of the seventeenth series of Britain's Got Talent was the first individual woman to win the show without a dog?
... that the moat around Pinxton Castle was inside the perimeter walls, rather than outside?
... that William Beck emigrated to the US from Germany, became a policeman at 19, was wounded by a Native American tribe, and was shipwrecked before becoming Milwaukee's first police chief?
... that a Texas TV station hoped that being named after an eye would ease viewer confusion?
... that Pharos, the largest impact crater on Neptune's moon Proteus, is more than half the diameter of Proteus itself?
... that in his book How to Be Perfect, Michael Schur sought to "wade into some deeply confusing and painful applications of moral philosophy ... but in a fun way"?
... that a video accompanying ML Buch's debut album showed viewers her inner self – literally?

In the news

KP Sharma Oli

KP Sharma Oli (pictured) is appointed prime minister of Nepal following the incumbent Pushpa Kamal Dahal losing a no confidence motion.
In association football, Euro 2024 concludes with Spain defeating England in the final, and the Copa América concludes with Argentina defeating Colombia in the final.
In tennis, Barbora Krejčíková and Carlos Alcaraz win the women's and men's singles, respectively, at the Wimbledon Championships.
Former United States president Donald Trump survives an assassination attempt during a political rally near Butler, Pennsylvania.

On this day

July 16

Impact site on Jupiter of a Shoemaker–Levy 9 fragment

1377 – The ten-year-old Richard II was crowned King of England at Westminster Abbey.
1782 – Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart's opera Die Entführung aus dem Serail premiered in Vienna, after which Emperor Joseph II anecdotally remarked that it had "too many notes".
1950 – Korean War: A Korean People's Army unit massacred 31 prisoners of war of the U.S. Army on a mountain near the village of Tuman.
1994 – Fragments of Comet Shoemaker–Levy 9 began colliding with the planet Jupiter (impact site pictured), with the first impact causing a fireball that reached a peak temperature of 24,000 kelvin.
2004 – Millennium Park, a public park in Chicago, Illinois, and one of the world's largest rooftop gardens, opened to the public.

Fulrad (d. 784)
al-Nasir Ahmad, Sultan of Egypt (d. 1344)
Ellen Oliver (b. 1870)
Gareth Bale (b. 1989)

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Today's featured picture

Snake handling in Christianity is a rite performed in several churches in the United States. Originating in rural Appalachia, the first instance of snake handling was seen about 1910. Pentecostal minister George Went Hensley was prominent in the early development of the rite. Practitioners commonly quote the gospels of Luke and Mark to support the practice. Practitioners are also encouraged to lay hands on the sick, speak in tongues, and occasionally drink poisons. This photograph, taken by the American photographer Russell Lee in 1946, depicts snake handling at the Church of God with Signs Following, a Pentecostal church in Lejunior, Kentucky.

Photograph credit: Russell Lee; restored by Adam Cuerden

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