Chernobyl: Reactor number 4 goes from operating at 7% of its maximum power to 100 times its maximum power in four seconds. The 2,000-ton concrete shield atop it, called the pyatachok (the five-kopeck coin), begins to boil and dance. Then two explosions within four seconds tear the reactor and the building apart. The first explosion lifts the pyatachok upward and vents onto the fiery red graphite below. The steam combines fiercely with the red-hot coal to form carbon monoxide, releasing hydrogen. This triggers the second explosion, toppling the pyatachok upright and projecting debris from the explosion almost 1 km into the air: six tons of highly irradiated uranium, radioactive graphite, and zirconium. About half of the ejected material falls within a 3 km radius of the reactor. About a ton of plutonium also remains in the reactor. There were 130 recorded deaths in the explosion, 500 deaths among rescuers, and more than 5,000 deaths in the following years (mostly from thyroid cancer, which stores iodine-131). The radiation released into the atmosphere was more than 500 times that of the Hiroshima bomb (which exploded 700 meters above the ground); approximately 50 tons of radioactive material was released into the atmosphere over an area populated by 5 million people. The explosion’s radioactive emissions are comparable to those of a 12-megaton H-bomb (2003 study).

1:40 AM: One of the four reactors at the Lenin Nuclear Power Plant in Chernobyl, Ukraine, explodes: 130 dead in the explosion, 500 rescue workers, and more than 5,000 in the following years (most from thyroid cancer, which stores iodine-131). The radiation released into the atmosphere is more than 500 times that of the Hiroshima bomb (which exploded 700 meters above the ground); approximately 50 tons of radioactive material is released into the atmosphere over an area populated by 5 million people. The explosion’s radioactive emissions are comparable to those of a 12-megaton H-bomb (2003 study).

FIAT buys Alfa Romeo from IRI

The Soviet Vega-2 probe passes 8030 km from the nucleus of Halley’s Comet.

The Iran-Contra scandal becomes public: parts of the US government sold weapons to Iran to raise funds to finance rebel factions (the Contras) against the communist regime in Nicaragua.

The Gospel of Mary Magdalene is discovered

Raytheon operationalizes the first Raytheon Tomahawk Cruise Missiles

James Cameron is the director of Aliens

Based on the discoveries of American biologists Thomas Cech and Sidney Altman (certain types of RNA can multiply without the help of proteins) Walter Gilbert hypothesizes the RNA World, that is, first the birth of RNA, then of proteins.

The glorious Voyager 2 passes just 81,500 km from the tops of Uranus’ cloud tops: 4 antennas in Australia and 3 in Goldstone, California must be used to hear the faint signal coming from the probe.

Gorbachev wrote a message to the United States in Pravda and Izvestia, proposing a program to gradually reduce nuclear weapons with the goal of complete elimination within 15 years. This same goal had been declared by US President Ronald Reagan a few years earlier, before Gorbachev came to power. Gorbachev’s move served to discredit what Yeltsin called “the old mafia of the party apparatus,” and was enthusiastically welcomed by Reagan.

United States. The amount of lead in gasoline is zero. The amount of lead in Americans’ blood will drop by up to 80% in 1995 compared to the 1970s. In Europe, such measures will be adopted with a delay of one to two decades. The measure had been called for by Clair Cameron Patterson in 1965 with the article “Contaminated and Natural Lead Environments of Man,” in which he denounced lead contamination in the modern environment, citing years of experiments he had conducted as evidence. And it was only implemented gradually from 1973 onward, having to contend with various lobbies.

Rome: Four Palestinian attackers, from Abu Nidal’s group, departed from Syria and funded by Libya, threw several hand grenades and then opened fire with Kalashnikovs on the crowd at the counter of the Israeli airline El Al. The first to react were four plainclothes Israeli special agents: three of the four attackers were killed and the fourth was wounded and captured. It later emerged that the objective was to hijack the Israeli flight and crash it in Tel Aviv. However, the Mossad had received warnings of the possible attack and had been stationing snipers for days, who were the first to respond effectively.

Palestinian attacks in Rome and Vienna: 16 dead, dozens injured

Tuesday, near Geneva: Mikhail Gorbachev and Ronald Reagan meet for the first time. The Americans rent the Chateau Fleur d’Eau on the western shore of Lake Geneva.

Hijacking of the “Achille Lauro”: Four heavily armed Palestinian terrorists hijack the Italian cruise ship off the coast of Egypt. Claiming membership in the Palestine Liberation Front, the militants demanded the release of 50 Palestinian militants from Israeli prisons. On October 9th, they surrendered to Egyptian authorities in exchange for their freedom and air passage to an unknown destination. But on October 10th, while the Egyptian jet was carrying the hijackers to safety, US Navy fighter jets intercepted it, forcing it to land at dawn the next morning at a base in Sicily. The plane was surrounded by American and Italian soldiers, and the terrorists were taken into Italian custody. The only victim of the hijacking was an elderly American Jew, Leon Klinghoffer, who was killed and thrown overboard with his wheelchair. Italian courts sentenced four terrorists to prison terms of up to 30 years, but they were released much sooner. The leader of the hijackers, Abu Abbas, was immediately released; he was captured by the Marines in Baghdad in 2003.

Earthquake in Mexico City: 8.0 on the Richter scale, 7,000 dead

Mikhail Gorbachev is elected General Secretary of the Communist Party

American double agent Aldrich Ames had dozens of CIA spies captured; 10 were executed, and dozens more ended up in the Gulag. Oleg Goldievsky, an employee of the Russian embassy in London and a British spy, managed to escape from Moscow, where he had been summoned, drugged, and interrogated. He was then taken out of the Soviet Union by the British. Ames was unmasked only in 1991, after the Cold War ended.

Richard Feynman publishes the seminal article “Quantum Mechanical Computers” in the journal “Optics News” and contributes, together with Paul Benioff, Charles H. Bennett, Tom Toffoli and Ed Fredkin, to laying the foundations of the physics of quantum computing, which will only begin to be put into practice twenty years later.

Ronald Reagan confirmed at the White House

Launch of the Japanese Sakigake (pioneer) probe towards Halley’s Comet