In ,(2014) Alaska lost a legend when Ruth Schmidt passed away at the age of 97.

This post was written by Elaine Rose
CEO
Planned Parenthood Votes Northwest in 2014

In a time when many women weren’t encouraged to enter scientific fields, Ruth received her Master’s (in 1939) and Ph.D. (in 1948) from Columbia University before going on to become a prominent geologist. She moved to Alaska in 1956, and later founded the Geology Department at the University of Alaska, Anchorage.

An article in the Anchorage Daily News from April summed up just how impressive Ruth’s accomplishments were: “Recently, the American Association of Petroleum Geologists announced it would honor the organization’s first 100 female members to commemorate its centennial in 2017. The first woman featured is Ruth A.M. Schmidt.”

Ruth was a treasure to the state of Alaska, not just because of her professional accomplishments, but also because of her storied philanthropic work.

As her obituary notes, “she supported conservation, opera and symphony, social services, public media, science, and science education for women and minorities.”

There’s something else to add to the list: Ruth supported women’s health and reproductive justice.

We were overwhelmed and amazed when we learned that part of Ruth’s will included a bequest to Planned Parenthood Votes Northwest, the first-ever contribution of that type to our organization.

We want to thank and honor Ruth for her support of women’s health and reproductive freedom.

Because of Ruth’s generosity, we have been able to wage a stronger fight against the threats to women’s health posed by politicians who want to interfere in personal medical decisions. Coupled with the support of thousands of activists like you – as donors, volunteers, and community supporters – we’ve been able to advance a progressive agenda across Alaska, Idaho, and Washington fighting for women and families.

Ruth was a trailblazer for women, for science, for Alaska, and for reproductive health and rights.

At 4 a.m. on March 28, 1979, the worst accident in the history of the U.S. nuclear power industry begins when a pressure valve in the Unit-2 reactor at Three Mile Island fails to close. Cooling water, contaminated with radiation, drained from the open valve into adjoining buildings, and the core began to dangerously overheat.

The Three Mile Island nuclear power plant was built in 1974 on a sandbar on Pennsylvania’s Susquehanna River, just 10 miles downstream from the state capitol in Harrisburg. In 1978, a second state-of-the-art reactor began operating on Three Mile Island, which was lauded for generating affordable and reliable energy in a time of energy crises.

After the cooling water began to drain out of the broken pressure valve on the morning of March 28, 1979, emergency cooling pumps automatically went into operation. Left alone, these safety devices would have prevented the development of a larger crisis. However, human operators in the control room misread confusing and contradictory readings and shut off the emergency water system. The reactor was also shut down, but residual heat from the fission process was still being released. By early morning, the core had heated to over 4,000 degrees, just 1,000 degrees short of meltdown. In the meltdown scenario, the core melts, and deadly radiation drifts across the countryside, fatally sickening a potentially great number of people.

As the plant operators struggled to understand what had happened, the contaminated water was releasing radioactive gases throughout the plant. The radiation levels, though not immediately life-threatening, were dangerous, and the core cooked further as the contaminated water was contained and precautions were taken to protect the operators. Shortly after 8 a.m., word of the accident leaked to the outside world. The plant’s parent company, Metropolitan Edison, downplayed the crisis and claimed that no radiation had been detected off plant grounds, but the same day inspectors detected slightly increased levels of radiation nearby as a result of the contaminated water leak. Pennsylvania Governor Dick Thornburgh considered calling an evacuation.

Finally, at about 8 p.m., plant operators realized they needed to get water moving through the core again and restarted the pumps. The temperature began to drop, and pressure in the reactor was reduced. The reactor had come within less than an hour of a complete meltdown. More than half the core was destroyed or molten, but it had not broken its protective shell, and no radiation was escaping. The crisis was apparently over.

Two days later, however, on March 30, a bubble of highly flammable hydrogen gas was discovered within the reactor building. The bubble of gas was created two days before when exposed core materials reacted with super-heated steam. On March 28, some of this gas had exploded, releasing a small amount of radiation into the atmosphere. At that time, plant operators had not registered the explosion, which sounded like a ventilation door closing. After the radiation leak was discovered on March 30, residents were advised to stay indoors. Experts were uncertain if the hydrogen bubble would create further meltdown or possibly a giant explosion, and as a precaution Governor Thornburgh advised “pregnant women and pre-school age children to leave the area within a five-mile radius of the Three Mile Island facility until further notice.” This led to the panic the governor had hoped to avoid; within days, more than 100,000 people had fled surrounding towns.

On April 1, President Jimmy Carter arrived at Three Mile Island to inspect the plant. Carter, a trained nuclear engineer, had helped dismantle a damaged Canadian nuclear reactor while serving in the U.S. Navy. His visit achieved its aim of calming local residents and the nation. That afternoon, experts agreed that the hydrogen bubble was not in danger of exploding. Slowly, the hydrogen was bled from the system as the reactor cooled.

At the height of the crisis, plant workers were exposed to unhealthy levels of radiation, but no one outside Three Mile Island had their health adversely affected by the accident. Nonetheless, the incident greatly eroded the public’s faith in nuclear power. The unharmed Unit-1 reactor at Three Mile Island, which was shut down during the crisis, did not resume operation until 1985. Cleanup continued on Unit-2 until 1990, but it was too damaged to be rendered usable again. In the four decades since the accident at Three Mile Island, not a single new nuclear power plant has been ordered in the United States.

Citation Information
Article Title
Nuclear disaster at Three Mile Island
Author
History.com Editors
Website Name
HISTORY
URL
https://www.history.com/this-day-in-history/nuclear-accident-at-three-mile-island
Access Date
{{$root.currentTime | date:’MMMM d, yyyy’}}
Publisher
A&E Television Networks
Last Updated
March 25, 2019
Original Published Date
November 24, 2009

By History.com Editors

At the height of the crisis, plant workers were exposed to unhealthy levels of radiation, but no one outside Three Mile Island had their health adversely affected by the accident. Nonetheless, the incident greatly eroded the public’s faith in nuclear power. The unharmed Unit-1 reactor at Three Mile Island, which was shut down during the crisis, did not resume operation until 1985. Cleanup continued on Unit-2 until 1990, but it was too damaged to be rendered usable again. In the four decades since the accident at Three Mile Island, not a single new nuclear power plant has been ordered in the United States.

Source: Internet

1349 – 3,000 Jews were killed in Black Death riots in Efurt Germany.

1556 – Thomas Cranmer, the Archbishop of Canterbury, was burned at the stake at Oxford after retracting the last of seven recantations that same day.

1788 – Almost the entire city of New Orleans, LA, was destroyed by fire. 856 buildings were destroyed.

1790 – Thomas Jefferson reported to U.S. President George Washington as the new secretary of state.

1804 – The French civil code, the Code Napoleon, was adopted.

1824 – A fire at a Cairo ammunitions dump killed 4,000 horses.

1826 – The Rensselaer School in Troy, NY, was incorporated. The school became known as Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute and was the first engineering college in the U.S.

1835 – Charles Darwin & Mariano Gonzales met at Portillo Pass.

1851 – Emperor Tu Duc ordered that Christian priests be put to death.

1851 – Yosemite Valley was discovered in California.

1857 – An earthquake hit Tokyo killing about 107,000.

1858 – British forces in India lift the siege of Lucknow, ending the Indian Mutiny.

1859 – In Philadelphia, the first Zoological Society was incorporated.

1868 – The Sorosos club for professional women was formed in New York City by Jennie June. It was the first of its kind.

1871 – Journalist Henry M Stanley began his famous expedition to Africa.

1902 – Romain Roland’s play “The 4th of July” premiered in Paris.

1902 – In New York, three Park Avenue mansions were destroyed when a subway tunnel roof caved in.

1904 – The British Parliament vetoed a proposal to send Chinese workers to Transvaal.

1905 – Sterilization legislation was passed in the State of Pennsylvania. The governor vetoed the measure.

1906 – Ohio passed a law that prohibited hazing by fraternities after two fatalities.

1907 – The U.S. Marines landed in Honduras to protect American interests in the war with Nicaragua.

1907 – The first Parliament of Transvaal met in Pretoria.

1908 – A passenger was carried in a bi-plane for the first time by Henri Farman of France.

1909 – Russia withdrew its support for Serbia and recognized the Austrian annexation of Bosnia-Herzegovina. Serbia accepted Austrian control over Bosnia-Herzegovina on March 31, 1909.

1910 – The U.S. Senate granted ex-President Teddy Roosevelt a yearly pension of $10,000.

1918 – During World War I, the Germans launched the Somme Offensive.

1925 – The state of Tennessee enacted the Butler Act. It was a law that made it a crime for a teacher in any state-supported public school to teach any theory that was in contradiction to the Bible’s account of man’s creation.

1928 – U.S. President Calvin Coolidge gave the Congressional Medal of Honor to Charles Lindbergh for his first trans-Atlantic flight.

1934 – A fire destroyed Hakodate, Japan, killing about 1,500.

1935 – Incubator ambulance service began in Chicago, IL.

1941 – The last Italian post in East Libya, North Africa, fell to the British.

1945 – During World War II, Allied bombers began four days of raids over Germany.

1946 – The Los Angeles Rams signed Kenny Washington. Washington was the first black player to join a National Football League team since 1933.

1946 – The United Nations set up a temporary headquarters at Hunter College in New York City.

1953 – The Boston Celtics beat Syracuse Nationals (111-105) in four overtimes to eliminate them from the Eastern Division Semifinals. A total of seven players (both teams combined) fouled out of the game.

1955 – NBC-TV presented the first “Colgate Comedy Hour”.

1957 – Shirley Booth made her TV acting debut in “The Hostess with the Mostest” on CBS.

1960 – About 70 people were killed in Sharpeville, South Africa, when police fired upon demonstrators.

1963 – Alcatraz Island, the federal penitentiary in San Francisco Bay, CA, closed.

1965 – The U.S. launched Ranger 9. It was the last in a series of unmanned lunar explorations.

1965 – More than 3,000 civil rights demonstrators led by the Rev. Martin Luther King Jr. began a march from Selma to Montgomery, AL.

1966 – In New York, demolition work began to clear thirteen square blocks for the construction of the original World Trade Center.

1971 – Two U.S. platoons in Vietnam refused their orders to advance.

1972 – The U.S. Supreme Court ruled that states could not require one year of residency for voting eligibility.

1974 – In Londone, an attempt was made to kidnap Princess Anne on the Mall.

1980 – U.S. President Jimmy Carter announced to the U.S. Olympic Team that they would not participate in the 1980 Summer Games in Moscow as a boycott against Soviet intervention in Afghanistan.

1980 – On the TV show “Dallas”, J.R. Ewing was shot.

1982 – The movie “Annie” premiered.

1982 – The United States, U.K. and other Western countries condemned the Soviet intervention in Afghanistan.

1984 – A Soviet submarine crashed into the USS Kitty Hawk off the coast of Japan.

1985 – Larry Flynt offered to sell his pornography empire for $26 million or “Hustler” magazine alone for $18 million.

1985 – Police in Langa, South Africa, opened fire on blacks marching to mark the 25th anniversary of the Sharpeville shootings. At least 21 demonstrators were killed.

1989 – Randall Dale Adams was released from a Texas prison after his conviction was overturned. The documentary “The Thin Blue Line” had challenged evidence of Adams’ conviction for killing a police officer.

1990 – “Normal Life” with Moon Unit & Dweezil Zappa premiered on CBS-TV.

1990 – Australian businessman Alan Bond sold Van Gogh’s “Irises” to the Gerry Museum. Bond had purchased the painting for $53.9 million in 1987.

1990 – “Sydney” starring Valerie Bertinelli premiered on CBS-TV.

1990 – Namibia became independent of South Africa.

1991 – 27 people were lost at sea when two U.S. Navy anti-submarine planes collided.

1991 – The U.N. Security Council lifted the food embargo against Iraq.

1994 – Dudley Moore was arrested for hitting his girlfriend.

1994 – Steven Spielberg won his first Oscars. They were for best picture and best director for “Schindler’s List.”

1994 – Wayne Gretzky tied Gordie Howe‘s NHL record of 801 goals.

1994 – Bill Gates of Microsoft and Craig McCaw of McCaw Cellular Communications announced a $9 billion plan that would send 840 satellites into orbit to relay information around the globe.

1995 – New Jersey officially dedicated the Howard Stern Rest Area along Route 295.

1995 – Tokyo police raided the headquarters of Aum Shinrikyo in search of evidence to link the cult to the Sarin gas released on five Tokyo subway trains.

1999 – Israel’s Supreme Court rejected the final effort to have American Samuel Sheinbein returned to the U.S. to face murder charges for killing Alfred Tello, Jr. Under a plea bargain Sheinbein was sentenced to 24 years in prison.

2000 – The U.S. Supreme Court ruled 5-4 that the U.S. Food and Drug Administration had overstepped its regulatory authority when it attempted to restrict the marketing of cigarettes to youngsters.

2001 – Nintendo released Game Boy Advance.

2002 – In Pakistan, Ahmed Omar Saeed Sheikh was charged with murder for his role in the kidnapping of Wall Street Journal reporter Daniel Pear. Three other Islamic militants that were in custody were also charged along with seven more accomplices that were still at large.

2002 – In Paris, an 1825 print by French inventor Joseph Nicephore Niepce was sold for $443,220. The print, of a man leading a horse, was the earliest recorded image taken by photographic means.

2003 – It was reported that the Dow Jones Industrial Average closed up 235.27 (2.8%) at 8,521.97. It was the strongest weekly gain in more than 20 years.

2016 – It was reported that the Kepler space telescope had captured the visible light of a “shock breakout” when the star KSN 2011a exploded. It was the first time an exploding star’s brilliant flash shockwave had been captured.

Source: on-this-day.com

The Reverend Martin Luther King, Jr., leads a march of 5,000 antiwar demonstrators in Chicago. In an address to the demonstrators, King declared that the Vietnam War was “a blasphemy against all that America stands for.” King first began speaking out against American involvement in Vietnam in the summer of 1965. In addition to his moral objections to the war, he argued that the war diverted money and attention from domestic programs to aid the black poor. He was strongly criticized by other prominent civil rights leaders for attempting to link civil rights and the antiwar movement.