here. it is presidents day today, february 20th. presidential historian gonna be with us tonight. she s gonna be with us here live very very much looking forward to that conversation. but it was on this date, which won february 20th in 2014 when the group they call the heavenly hundred was killed. it was actually 118 people, call them the heavenly hundred. the youngest of them was just 16 years old. the oldest of them was 83 years old. it all happened as the culmination of protests that had started the previous november, people were protesting in ukraine. because the government of that country had had the chance to sign on to a big trade deal with europe. a deal that was expected to have big economic benefits for ukraine, it was definitely something that would bring ukraine closer to europe. closer to the west. people in ukraine frothy war, really looking forward to. it this is a popular thing they very much wanted it. but the president of ukraine at the time decided he was
Through her unique approach to storytelling, Rachel Maddow provides in-depth reporting to illuminate the current state of political affairs and reveals the.
Years. it was of course a success that came at great risk to the man who had to run into that radioactive reactor to take it apart it by bit. the man who was in charge of this incredibly risky and incredibly innovative operation was just 28 years old. he was a lieutenant in the navy with nuclear submarine experience. he was one of the only man on the entire planet at the time for the skill set to develop this kind of a plan. and to himself go down inside a meltdown nuclear reactor. a young man at the time, a young man from georgia, his name was james pearl carter. he went by jimmy for short. before jimmy carter became president, before he became a politician of any kind, he was in the navy. he is actually the only american president to have graduated from the u.s. naval academy in minneapolis. he served in the navy for seven years as a submarine or. that is how he got chosen for the prestigious nuclear submarine program. and how he ended up in command
Few people on the planet authorized to go inside a nuclear reactor. he wrote about suiting up and descending into the reactor when it was his turn. the washington post points out in one minute and 29 seconds,, carter had absorbed the maximum amount of radiation human can withstand an a year. the mission was successful. the damaged core was removed. jimmy carter s bravery and service to take us off the air this presidents day. and on that note, i wish you a good night, remember, you can watch my show, simon, every weekend at 4 pm eastern, right here on msnbc. and from all of our colleagues across the networks of msnbc news, thank you for staying up late. i will see this weekend. thanks for being with us this hour, it s good to have you
Because nobody could do anything inside the reactor that lasted more than 90 seconds. so the way it worked was one man would run in and, like, unscrew a bold if that would take 90 seconds. then he would run out. next man would run in after his 90 seconds was up. next i would unscrew the do whatever the next step was. in order to plan this, to these tiny increments of time, they actually built a full size replica of the real after, at a nearby playground. and they practiced every single step of the shutdown and the breakdown on the disassembly of the story after. they practiced it all on the replica. that is how they took this thing apart. one bold at a time. one 92nd work shipped at a time. it sounds insane but it actually worked. he melted down reactor was safely disassembled. and removed from the site. the entire thing actually was re-assembled and back up and running safely in just a few