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Shawn Green

Shawn David Green (born November 10, 1972) is an American former Major League Baseball right fielder. Green was a first-round draft pick and a two-time major league All-Star. He drove in 100 runs four times and scored 100 runs four times, hit 40 or more home runs three times, led the league in doubles, extra base hits, and total bases, won both a Gold Glove Award and a Silver Slugger Award, and set the Dodgers single-season record in home runs. Green was also in the top five in the league in home runs, RBIs, intentional walks, and MVP voting.

Green holds or is tied for the following major league records: most home runs in a game (four), most extra base hits in a game (five), most total bases in a game (19), most runs scored in a game (six), most home runs in two consecutive games (five), most home runs in three consecutive games (seven), and most consecutive home runs (four). He hit his four home runs and five extra base hits, totaling 19 total bases, in one game against the Milwaukee Brewers on May 23, 2002. Green broke the record of 18 total bases (four home runs and double) set by Joe Adcock of the Milwaukee Braves (vs. Brooklyn Dodgers) in 1954.

At the time of his retirement, he was one of only four active players with at least 300 home runs, 1,000 runs and RBIs, 400 doubles, a .280 batting average, and 150 stolen bases. The others were Barry Bonds, Ken Griffey Jr., and Gary Sheffield, each of whom was at least two years older than Green, with at least 1,400 more at bats (though the other three had considerably more home runs and, for Bonds, far more doubles and runs scored too).

Early and personal life
Green was born in Des Plaines, Illinois, and is Jewish, and his family moved to New Jersey when he was one year old, and later to San Jose, California, and finally to Tustin, California when he was 12 years old. His father, Ira, played forward in basketball at DePaul University for the Blue Demons during the 1960s, graduating in 1966, and his mother is the former Judy Schneider.

Green was one of the best-known Jewish major league ballplayers, and the most prominent one with the New York Mets since Art Shamsky played right field for the 1969 World Series champion Mets. Of Jewish major leaguers, only Hank Greenberg, with 331 home runs and 1,276 RBIs, has more major league home runs and RBIs than Green.

Green opted to miss games on Yom Kippur, even when his team was in the middle of a playoff race.

While Green is often likened to Hank Greenberg, Green's grandfather in fact shortened the family name from Greenberg to Green, for "business reasons." Green was arguably the best Jewish baseball player since Sandy Koufax, although his stats (especially his home runs) declined in his last years. Green retired on February 28, 2008.

Green has a residence in the Orange County, California city of Irvine, which neighbors his old Tustin hometown. In 2002, he married Lindsay Bear in a mixed Jewish and Christian ceremony. The couple have two daughters.

High school
He attended Tustin High School in Tustin, California, where he tied the California Interscholastic Federation record with 147 hits during his high school career. He was a 1st team selection to the 1991 USA Today All-USA high school team, while ranking 3rd in his class academically.

College and the baseball draft
In 1991, Green won a baseball scholarship to Stanford University, where he became a brother of the Delta Tau Delta International Fraternity.

Green was drafted by the Toronto Blue Jays as their 1st round pick (16th overall) in the 1991 amateur draft. The Blue Jays drafted him using a compensation pick from the San Francisco Giants, to whom they had lost Bud Black via free agency. Green ultimately struck a deal with the Blue Jays. They agreed that Green would play in the minor leagues during the summer, but go back to the university in the off-season.

Green received one of the highest signing bonuses at that time ($725,000; ($0 today)), a portion of which he donated to the Metropolitan Toronto Housing Authority Breakfast Club (which provides breakfast for kids who would otherwise go to school hungry).

Minor league career
In 1992, Green played for the Dunedin Blue Jays of the Florida State League, and was selected to the league's all-star team.

Green spent most of 1993 and 1994 in the minors, where he compiled impressive numbers. In 1994, he hit .344—winning the International League batting title—while ranking third in runs, hits, and on-base percentage and hitting thirteen home runs with 61 RBIs for Toronto's AAA affiliate, the Syracuse Chiefs. He was an International League all-star, was voted the International League Rookie of the Year, and was also voted the International League's Best Batting Prospect, Best Outfield Arm, and Most Exciting Player in Baseball America's Tools of the Trade poll. In addition, he won the R. Howard Webster Award as the Chief's MVP, and was the Blue Jays' Minor League Player of the Year. Green then hit .306 in the 1994–1995 Venezuelan Winter League.

Toronto Blue Jays (1993–1999)
Green made his Major League debut on September 28 as the second-youngest player in the Major Leagues. Though he did not play in the 1993 World Series, he was awarded a World Series ring. He appeared in just seventeen games in 1993 and 1994.

In 1995, his full rookie season, Green started in 97 games, hitting fifteen home runs and batting .288. Green set Blue Jays rookie records in doubles (31), hit streak (14), extra base hits (50), and slugging percentage (.509). He came in fifth in voting for the American League Rookie of the Year.

His 1996 and 1997 seasons were similar, in that Green was given limited at bats, wasn't trusted to hit left-handed pitching, and produced only sporadically. Green was, however, more aggressive on the base paths in 1997 than in any previous year, stealing fourteen bases while being caught only three times.

In 1998, Green was granted an everyday spot in the line-up and he delivered by becoming the first Blue Jay to become a member of the 30–30 club, in which he hit over 30 home runs and stole 30 or more bases in the same season. He also became the tenth Major Leaguer to hit 35 or more home runs and steal 35 or more bases in a season, joining among others Willie Mays, Barry Bonds, and Alex Rodriguez. Green had never hit more than eighteen home runs in a season (major or minor leagues). He finished the season batting .278 with 35 home runs, 100 RBIs, and 35 stolen bases (a career best).

In 1999, Green proved his new-found power was no fluke. On April 22, he hit a 449 ft home run into SkyDome's fifth deck, putting him in prestigious company with José Canseco, Mark McGwire, and Joe Carter. By the All-Star break, he had hit 25 home runs and knocked in 70 runs, earning him not only his first All-Star appearance, but also a chance to compete in the Home Run Derby at Fenway Park. Green hit only two home runs, however, and was eliminated in the first round. He finished the season batting .309 (a career best), with 42 home runs (5th in the league), 134 runs (2nd in the league, and a career best), 123 RBIs, and a .588 slugging percentage (5th best in the league). Green also led the league in doubles (45), extra-base hits (87), and total bases (361). He hit a home run in every 14.6 at-bats. After the season, he was awarded a Gold Glove Award for his defense, and a Silver Slugger Award for his offense, and came in ninth in the voting for MVP.

In the off-season, Green expressed a desire to sign as a free agent with a team closer to his California roots after the 2000 season. The Blue Jays, facing the rising contract demands of Green and slugger teammate Carlos Delgado, decided not to leave the decision of which player to pursue until mid-way through the season. On November 8, 1999, Green was traded with Jorge Nuñez to the Los Angeles Dodgers for Pedro Borbón Jr. and Raúl Mondesí. Green quickly signed an extension with Los Angeles, agreeing to an $84 million ($0 today)/6-year deal that included a $4 million ($0 today) signing bonus.

Los Angeles Dodgers (2000–2004)
With a lot of pressure riding on his now well-paid shoulders, Green struggled at times in 2000, his first season with Los Angeles. Still, he led the league in games played (with 162), and was fifth in the league in doubles with 44 (the second-highest total in Dodgers history), while driving in 99 runs. He also had one of the longest consecutive games on-base streaks in baseball history, at 53; five behind Duke Snider's modern day National League (NL) record. He hit home runs in five straight games; the only other Dodgers to achieve this feat are Roy Campanella (1950), Matt Kemp (2010), Adrián González (2014–15), and Joc Pederson (2015). He hit .329 in late innings of close games.

Green had a career year in 2001, batting .297 (.331 with runners in scoring position) with a .598 slugging percentage (a career best), 49 home runs (a career best), 121 runs (7th in the league), 125 RBIs (a career best), 370 total bases (5th in the league), and 20 stolen bases. His 49 home runs were a Dodgers single-season record, but only tied for fourth in the league, behind Barry Bonds, Sammy Sosa, and Luis González. For the fourth straight year he stole 20 or more bases, and batted .331 with runners in scoring position. Green came in sixth in voting for league MVP.

Green made headlines for two decisions that he made during the 2001 season. On September 26, he stood by his word and sat out a game for the first time in 415 games, to honor the most significant holiday on the Jewish calendar, Yom Kippur. He also made a second notable decision on September 26, donating his day's pay of $75,000 ($0 today) to a charity for survivors of the New York 9/11 terrorist attacks.

Green started off slowly in 2002, but turned things around with a record-setting power display. On May 23, the turning point of his season, he had one of the best single game performances ever. He hit a Major League record-tying four home runs and a record-tying five extra-base hits (he hit a double in addition to the home runs) against the Milwaukee Brewers, and had 19 total bases, breaking Joe Adcock's 1954 Major League record by one, while matching the major league record of six runs scored in one game. No other major league player had six hits, five runs, and as many as four extra-base hits in a game again until Ian Kinsler of the Texas Rangers in 2009. He hit a 5th home run during the following game to tie the Major League 2-game home run record (5), and then hit 2 more the game after to break the Major League three-game record (seven). Green also broke the NL record with 9 home runs in that calendar week. He was voted to the All-Star team, and finished the season with a .285 average, .385 On-base percentage (a career best), 42 home runs (3rd in the league), 114 RBIs (4th in the league), 114 runs (4th in the league), 93 walks (a career best), 22 intentional walks (5th in the league), and 20 stolen bases. He hit .333 with runners in scoring position and two out. Green came in 5th in voting for league MVP.

In 2003, Green struggled with his power and RBI production. He had problems with tendinitis in his left shoulder, which limited him to a 19 home runs and 85 RBIs as he batted .280. Still, he was 2nd in the league in doubles (with 49; a career best).

Green's power improved in 2004, as he hit 28 home runs and collected 86 RBIs, while batting .266, leading the Dodgers to the 2004 playoffs. Green moved to first base for much of the season. He hit three home runs in the post-season, in just 16 at bats.

Green was traded to the Arizona Diamondbacks on January 11, 2005. He waived his no-trade clause for a three-year extension from the team for $32 million. The trade was part of a three-team trade which sent Green and cash to the Diamondbacks, in exchange for catcher Dioner Navarro and three minor leaguers.

Arizona Diamondbacks (2005–06)
While Green's batting average in 2005 (.286) was his best in four years, he walked fewer times (62) than he had in the prior six years, and hit fewer home runs (22) and scored fewer runs (87) than he had in all but seven of his prior seasons. Green came to bat 398 times with the Diamondbacks before being traded in 2006, and while his batting average and on-base percentage were near his career averages, his slugging percentage (.425) was the lowest it had been since he broke into the Majors.

On August 22, 2006, Green was dealt, along with $6.5 million in cash, by the Arizona Diamondbacks to the New York Mets for Triple-A 23-year-old left-handed pitcher, Evan MacLane.

2006
Green's second at bat as a Met was an RBI single off Cardinals' pitcher Jason Marquis, another Jewish ball player.

Overall, in 2006 Green had his worst offensive year in a decade. He hit only fifteen home runs, with 66 RBI, four stolen bases, a .432 slugging percentage, and a .277 batting average. Green's fifteen home runs matched his second-lowest total since becoming a full-time player. His 73 runs scored was also a significant drop-off from the 134 runs he scored in his outstanding 1999 season with Toronto. One bright point was that his .799 OPS against lefties was the tenth-best in the league for lefty batters. Curiously, while he had the ninth-highest ground ball/fly ball ratio in the league (2.17), he also tied with Barry Bonds for the longest average home run in the NL in 2006 (407 ft). His 470 ft home run against the Mets on April 11 was the ninth-longest in the NL for the year, and only two longer home runs were hit in the AL. He also had another bright point—he struck out only 15.5% of the time, his best career year through 2006. He faded as the season progressed, dropping 65 points—and batting .240—after the All Star break.

After the season ended, Green was eighteenth of all active players in doubles (and younger than all those ahead of him), and in the top thirty of all active players in home runs, runs, total bases, and extra base hits. He was also in the top 100 of all players ever lifetime in home runs.

2006 marked only the second post-season appearance of Green's career. In the 2006 playoffs, Green tied for the team lead with three doubles, and hit .313, second best on the team (as the Mets hit only .250).

2007
On February 13, 2007, the Mets declined a $10 million mutual option on Green's contract, that would have kept him in New York through the 2008 season. He got a $2 million buyout instead. The report came amid retirement rumors. Green commented on them, saying: "There's been no decision on the future at all as far as I'm concerned. I'm planning on playing and seeing how things go...."

In the fifth inning of the May 25, 2007, game against the Florida Marlins, Green suffered a chip fracture of the first metatarsal bone in his right foot when he fouled a ball off of it. Green at the time of the injury was batting .314, tenth-best in the NL, and .341 against right-handers, with five home runs, 22 RBIs, twelve doubles, and four stolen bases. On May 29, Green was placed on the 15-day disabled list; his first time on the DL in his career. The bone was expected to fully heal in six weeks, but he was activated well before then; on June 11 he was back in the lineup, though the bone was not completely healed, and went 2–for–4 with a run batted in and a stolen base. On June 24, Green started at first base for the first time since 2006, when he was a member of the Diamondbacks.

Retirement
After the 2007 season, Green became a free agent. He chose to retire before the start of the 2008 season as he wanted to be with his family. Green confirmed his retirement on February 28, 2008.

Among all-time Jewish major league baseball players—through 2010—he was second in career home runs and RBIs (behind Hank Greenberg), and tenth in batting average (behind Morrie Arnovich).

Fielding
In 1998, Green had fourteen assists and five double plays from the outfield. Most of Green's innings in the field were in right field, where he was awarded a Gold Glove Award in 1999. In 2005, he did not commit an error in the outfield. Green also played over 100 games at first base (mostly in 2004 and 2006), and over fifty games each in center field and left field.

Accomplishments

 * Toronto Blue Jays Minor League Player of the Year (1994)
 * Fifth in AL Rookie of the Year voting (1995)
 * Topps All-Star Rookie Team (1995)
 * Member of the 30–30 club (1998)
 * All-Star (1999, 2002)
 * AL Total Bases leader (1999)
 * AL Doubles leader (1999)
 * AL Gold Glove Award (1999)
 * AL Silver Slugger Award (1999)
 * Ninth in AL MVP voting (1999)
 * Toronto Blue Jays Player of the Year (1999)
 * Holds Dodgers record for most home runs in a season, with 49 (2001)
 * Sixth in NL MVP voting (2001)

 * LA Dodgers Player of the Year (2001)
 * Four home runs in a game (May 23, 2002)
 * Holds record for total bases in a game, with 19 (May 23, 2002)
 * Fifth in NL MVP voting (2002)
 * 20-Home Run Seasons: seven (1998–2002, 2004 & 2005)
 * 30-Home Run Seasons: four (1998, 1999, 2001 & 2002)
 * 40-Home Run Seasons: three (1999, 2001 & 2002)
 * 100 RBI Seasons: four (1998, 1999, 2001 & 2002)
 * 100 Runs Scored Seasons: four (1998, 1999, 2001 & 2002)
 * Only Major League player to ever hit seven home runs in a three-game span (May 23 (4), 24 (1), 25 (2), 2002)
 * Recorded his 2,000th Major League hit (September 25, 2007)

Hall of Fame candidacy
Green became eligible for the National Baseball Hall of Fame in 2013. 75% of the vote was necessary for induction, and 5% was necessary to stay on the ballot. Of the 37 total candidates, Green received 2 votes (0.4%) and was eliminated from future BBWAA voting.

Team Israel
Green played and coached for the Israeli national baseball team in the 2013 World Baseball Classic qualifier in September 2012. He was eligible to play for Israel because he is Jewish. Under the Classic's rules, non-Israeli citizens of Jewish heritage can play for the country. Israel lost to Spain in extra innings in the Pool Finals, missing out on a spot in the tournament. During the first game of the tournament Green was the designated hitter and batted fifth, going 2 for 5 with a run scored and a strike out. Green did not play in the second game. During the third and final game, Green went 1-for-4 with a run batted in while leaving seven men on base.

Non-baseball career
Green made a cameo appearance on the series premiere of the hit show Numb3rs (2005), while he was an active Los Angeles Dodgers player, in the film The Core (2003) and on The Nick Cannon Show (2002).

He founded Greenfly in 2014, a software company developing technology for sports and entertainment organizations and used by the Los Angeles Dodgers.

In 2011, Green, with co-author Gordon McAlpine, published The Way of Baseball, a memoir of his spiritual development through his baseball career.

Charitable work
Green assists several charities, including the Juvenile Diabetes Research Foundation, Special Olympics, Parkinsons Foundation, and the United Jewish Federation. He donated $250,000 of his salary each year to the Dodgers' Dream Foundation ($1.5 million over 6 years), supporting the development of 4 Dodger Dream Fields throughout LA and the purchase of books for local elementary schools and youth community programs. He also served as Spokesman for the Jewish Federation of Greater Los Angeles to promote literacy.

In 2007, Green pledged to donate $180—or 10 times chai—to the UJA-Federation of New York for every run batted in. This was also matched by the New York Mets and Steiner Sports Collectibles. Chai, which means life in Hebrew, has a numerological value of 18 and the Jewish community often gives gifts in multiples of 18 as a result.

Honors and awards

 * Honored at the Baseball Assistance Team's annual Going to Bat for BAT fundraising dinner as the recipient of the Bart Giamatti Award for his off-the-field involvement in the community in 2000.
 * Named Baseball Man of the Year at the Cedars-Sinai Sports Spectacular on June 29, 2003, an event that helped raise money for the hospital's genetic defects unit.
 * Named a 2003 inductee into the Arizona Fall League Hall of Fame.
 * Presented the Hank Greenberg Sportsmanship Award by the American Jewish Historical Society in 2004.
 * Inducted into the Orange County Jewish Sports Hall of Fame at the Merage Jewish Community Center in Irvine, California.
 * Inducted into the Jewish Sports Hall of Fame Northern California.
 * Inducted into the Southern California Jewish Sports Hall of Fame (2001).
 * Inducted into the National Jewish Sports Hall of Fame (2005).
 * Inducted into the International Jewish Sports Hall of Fame (2014).

Miscellaneous

 * Green's walkup songs were "Be Yourself" by Audioslave and "Song 2" by Blur.
 * Threw his batting gloves to children each time he hit a home run in his home ballpark.
 * Has two bats in the National Baseball Hall of Fame: 1) the bat he used on May 23, 2002, to hit four homers against the Milwaukee Brewers; and 2) the bat he used to hit a grand slam on May 21, 2000, one of a record six grand slams hit on that day.
 * Shawn Green was also a playable character in Backyard Baseball 2001, Backyard Baseball 2003, and "Backyard Baseball 2005", representing the Dodgers.

title: Shawn Green


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Łask

Łask is a town in central Poland with 16,925 inhabitants (2020). It is the capital of Łask County, and is situated in Łódź Voivodeship. The Polish Air Force's 32nd Air Base is located nearby. It is located in the Sieradz Land.

History
Łask was founded in the 11th century, and from the 14th century it was the seat of the powerful Łaski noble family. Korab, the family's coat of arms, remains the town's coat of arms to this day. The first mention of Łask comes from 1356. A church was built in 1366, and in 1498 Polish prince and Primate of Poland Frederick Jagiellon founded a hospital for the poor. In 1422 it was granted town rights modeled on Środa Śląska by virtue of a document issued by Polish king Władysław II Jagiełło in Mielno. The king also set up an annual fair and a weekly market. In 1504, King Alexander Jagiellon confirmed and extended the privileges. Crafts soon developed and in 1517–1523, the town's landmark Gothic collegiate church was erected under the patronage of the Primate of Poland Jan Łaski. It was partially rebuilt in Baroque style in the 18th century. Thanks to the efforts of Hieronymus Łaski, King Sigismund III Vasa granted four new fairs in 1613. After the Łaski family, from 1660 until the Partitions of Poland the town was owned by Nadolski, Wierzbowski and Załuski families. Łask was a private town, administratively located in the Szadek County in the Sieradz Voivodeship in the Greater Poland Province of the Kingdom of Poland.

Jews began to settle in the town at the close of the 16th century. From that time forward, the Jewish population of the town averaged between 50% and 65% of the total, typical of small shtetls of the region. The primary industries were leather tanning, textiles, and food. The surnames Łaski (Laski) and Lasker derive from the name of the town, many of those with the former surname are of Polish descent, while often those with the latter are of Jewish descent.

In 1793 Łask was annexed by the Kingdom of Prussia in the Second Partition of Poland, in 1807 it became part of the short-lived Polish Duchy of Warsaw, and in 1815 it was designated as part of Congress Poland, later forcibly incorporated into Russia. The Polish population took part in 19th-century Polish uprisings and patriotic manifestations. At the same time, Łask saw an influx of Jewish people fleeing persecution in Russia (see Pale of Settlement).

In 1903 the town was connected to the railway line and industrial plants were built. During World War I, the town was occupied by Germany, and after the war, in 1918 it was re-integrated with Poland, as Poland regained independence. In 1919, Łask became a county seat within the Łódź Voivodeship. By 1939, "there were 3,864 Jews out of a total population of 6,000 people living in the town."

World War II
With the invasion of Poland and the outbreak of the Second World War in September 1939, Łask was occupied by the Wehrmacht and annexed by Nazi Germany. The town was then administered as part of the county or district (kreis) of Lask within the newly formed province Reichsgau Wartheland, and the Jewish half of the population and the Polish intelligentsia were systematically targeted and annihilated under the racial policy of Nazi Germany. Some Poles from Łask were among the victims of large massacres of Poles committed by Nazi Germany in nearby Łagiewniki (present-day district of Łódź) in December 1939 during the Intelligenzaktion.

In January 1940, it was reported by the Jewish Telegraphic Agency that 100 Jewish citizens of Łask had been summarily executed en masse without trial because house-to-house searches by the Nazis revealed that they were armed and were planning to resist. The town's synagogue was then surrounded by the Nazis and "hundreds more" Jews were shot and killed as they tried to defend the building. With their deaths, the Nazis put the structure to the torch and it was consumed in fire. By December 1940, 3,467 Jews from the town who had survived these mass murders were confined to a ghetto.

In 1941, hundreds of other Jews were brought to the area from surrounding regions. At the same time, the Germans destroyed the old Jewish cemetery in the town, and paved the sidewalks of the town with its gravestones. A year later, on August 24, 1942, a "liquidation" of the ghetto was carried out. Those who were infirm or ill were murdered outright, and all the other Jews were taken to a church outside the town. There they were examined, and 760 selected Jews were transferred to the Łódź Ghetto, some of the ill were killed on the spot, and the remainder of the 3,500 Jews were transported to the Chełmno extermination camp, where they were killed. Later, the Germans hunted down the remnant Jews hiding in the town and killed them all. A wall plaque in Łask commemorates "the 3,517 Lasker Jews exterminated by the Nazis during August, 1942." Only about 20 Lask Jews survived the war, one hidden by a Christian farmer. Following the arrival of the Red Army and the subsequent end of the war in 1945, Łask became part of the People's Republic of Poland. As of 2004, "Łask has 18,948 inhabitants [...] and there are no known Jewish inhabitants."

Recent times
It was administratively located in the Sieradz Voivodeship from 1975 to 1998.

A detachment of the US Air Force has been permanently stationed at Łask Air Base since November, 2012.

Notable residents

 * Jan Łaski (1456–1531), Primate of Poland.
 * Hieronymus Łaski (1496–1542), Polish diplomat.
 * Jan Łaski (1499–1560), Protestant reformer.
 * Olbracht Łaski (died 1604), Polish alchemist
 * Aaron Karfunkel, 18th century rabbi
 * Mieczysław Wolfke (1883–1947), Polish physicist
 * Genowefa Kobielska (1906–1993) track and field athlete, competed in the 1928 Summer Olympics
 * Magda Femme (born 1971), Polish pop singer
 * Ilona Felicjańska (born 1973), Miss Polonia 1993
 * Dr Luke (born 1973), Pop music composer/producer
 * Artur Golański (born 1992) a Polish footballer

Twin towns
Łask is twinned with:

 * 🇩🇪 Dannenberg, Germany
 * 🇧🇾 Lahoysk, Belarus

license: Creative Commons - Attribution Share-Alike - https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/

title: Łask


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SL-1

Stationary Low-Power Reactor Number One, also known as SL-1, initially the Argonne Low Power Reactor (ALPR), was a United States Army experimental nuclear reactor in the western United States at the National Reactor Testing Station (NRTS) in Idaho about 40 mi west of Idaho Falls, now the Idaho National Laboratory. On January 3, 1961, at 9:01 pm MST, an operator fully pulled out the reactor's central control rod, causing the reactor to go from fully shutdown to prompt critical. The intense heat from the nuclear reaction expanded the water inside the reactor core, producing extreme water hammer and causing water, steam, reactor components, debris, and fuel to vent from the top of the reactor where the three operators were working. As the water struck the top of the reactor vessel, it propelled the entire reactor vessel to the ceiling of the reactor room where it struck the overhead crane. A supervisor who had been on top of the reactor lid was impaled by an expelled control rod shield plug and pinned to the ceiling. The release of materials hit the two other operators, mortally injuring them. The reactor vessel then fell down to its original position.

Initial press reports indicated that a chemical explosion was the likely cause of the accident that killed all three of its young military operators. By January 9, 1961, the press began reporting that an operator had been "lodged in the upper structure of the reactor building" prior to the body's removal at 2:37 am on January 9. It remains the only U.S. reactor accident to cause immediate deaths.

Part of the Army Nuclear Power Program, SL-1 was a prototype for reactors intended to provide electrical power and heat for small, remote military facilities, such as radar sites near the Arctic Circle, and those in the DEW Line. The design power was 3 MW (thermal), but some 4.7 MW tests were performed in the months before the accident. Useful power output was 200 kW electrical and 400 kW for space heating.

During the accident, the core power level reached nearly 20 GW in just four milliseconds, causing the explosion. The direct cause was the over-withdrawal of the central control rod that absorbed neutrons in the reactor's core. The accident released about 80 Ci of iodine-131, which was not considered significant, due to its location in the remote high desert of Eastern Idaho. About 1100 Ci of fission products were released into the atmosphere.

Design and operations
From 1954 to 1955, the U.S. Army evaluated their need for nuclear reactor plants that would be operable in remote regions of the Arctic. The reactors were to replace diesel generators and boilers that provided electricity and space heating for the Army's radar stations. The Army Reactors Branch wrote the guidelines for the project and hired Argonne National Laboratory (ANL) to design, build, and test a prototype reactor plant to be called the Argonne Low Power Reactor (ALPR). Some of the more important criteria included:
 * All components able to be transported by air
 * All components limited to packages measuring 7.5 x and weighing 20000 lb
 * Use of standard components
 * Minimal on-site construction
 * Simplicity and reliability
 * Adaptable to the Arctic permafrost region
 * 3-year fuel operating lifetime per core loading

The prototype was constructed at the National Reactor Testing Station west of Idaho Falls from July 1957 to July 1958. It went critical on August 11, 1958, became operational on October 24, and was formally dedicated on December 2, 1958. The 3 MW (thermal) boiling water reactor (BWR) used 93.20% highly enriched uranium fuel. It operated with natural circulation, using light water as a coolant (vs. heavy water) and moderator. ANL used its experience from the BORAX experiments to design the reactor. The circulating water system operated at 300 psi flowing through fuel plates of uranium-aluminum alloy. The plant was turned over to the Army for training and operating experience in December 1958 after extensive testing, with Combustion Engineering Incorporated (CEI) acting as the lead contractor beginning February 5, 1959.

"CEI was responsible for the actual operation of the SL-1 reactor, for the routine training of military personnel and for developmental research programs.

The Contractor provided at the site a Project Manager, Operations Supervisor, a Test Supervisor, and a technical staff of approximately six personnel. In recent months, the Project Manager spent approximately half time at the site and half time at the contractor's office in Connecticut. In his absence, either the Operations Supervisor or the Test Supervisor was assigned as the Project Manager.

It was understood, as indicated by testimony before the Board, that CEI would provide supervision on any shifts when non-routine work was carried out.

the AEC's Idaho Office and the Army Reactors Office clearly believed that the addition of night supervisors when only routine work was involved would defeat a part of the purpose of operating the reactor under the existing arrangement, i.e., to obtain plant operating experience with only military personnel."

Trainees in the Army Reactor Training Program included members of the Army, called cadre, who were the primary plant operators. Many maritime civilians also trained along with a few Air Force and Navy personnel. While plant operation was generally done by the cadre in two-man crews, development of the reactor was supervised directly by CEI staff. CEI decided to perform development work on the reactor as recent as the latter half of 1960 in which the reactor was to be operated at 4.7 MWthermal for a "PL-1 condenser test." As the reactor core aged and boron neutron poison strips corroded and flaked off, CEI calculated that about 18% of the boron in the core had been lost. On November 11, 1960, CEI installed cadmium sheets (also a poison) "to several tee slot positions to increase reactor shutdown margin."

Most of the plant equipment was in a cylindrical steel reactor building known as ARA-602. It was 38.5 ft in diameter with an overall height of 48 ft, and was made of plate steel, most of which had a thickness of 1/4 in. Access to the building was provided by an ordinary door through an enclosed exterior stairwell from ARA-603, the Support Facilities Building. An emergency exit door led to an exterior stairwell to the ground level. The reactor building was not a pressure-type containment shell as would have been used for reactors located in populated areas. Nevertheless, the building was able to contain most of the radioactive particles released by the eventual explosion.

The reactor core structure was built to hold 59 fuel assemblies, one startup neutron source assembly, and nine control rods. The actual core in use had 40 fuel elements and was controlled by five cruciform rods. The five active rods were in the shape of a plus symbol (+) in cross section: one in the center (Rod Number 9), and four on the periphery of the active core (Rods 1, 3, 5, and 7). The control rods were made of 60 mil thick cadmium, clad with 80 mil of aluminum. They had an overall span of 14 in and an effective length of 32 in. The 40 fuel assemblies were composed of nine fuel plates each. The plates were 120 mil thick, consisting of 50 mil of uranium-aluminum alloy "meat" covered by 35 mil of X-8001 aluminum cladding. The meat was 25.8 in long and 3.5 in wide. The water gap between fuel plates was 310 mil. Water channels within the control rod shrouds was 0.5 in. The initial loading of the 40-assembly core was highly enriched with 93.2% uranium-235 and contained 31 lb of U-235.

The deliberate choice of using fewer fuel assemblies made the region near the center more active than it would have been with 59 fuel assemblies. The four outer control rods were not even used in the smaller core after tests concluded they were not necessary. In the operating SL-1 core, Rods 2, 4, 6, and 8 were dummy rods, had newly installed cadmium shims, or were filled with test sensors, and were shaped like the capital letter T. The effort to minimize the size of the core gave an abnormally-large reactivity worth to Rod 9, the center control rod.

Accident and response
On Tuesday, January 3, 1961, SL-1 was being prepared for restart after a shutdown of 11 days over the holidays. Maintenance procedures required that rods be manually withdrawn a few inches to reconnect each one to its drive mechanism. At 9:01 pm MST, Rod 9 was suddenly withdrawn too far, causing SL-1 to go prompt critical instantly. In four milliseconds, the heat generated by the resulting enormous power excursion caused fuel inside the core to melt and to explosively vaporize. The expanding fuel plates produced an extreme pressure wave that blasted water upward, striking the top of the reactor vessel with a peak pressure of 10000 psi. The slug of water was propelled at 160 ft/s with average pressure of around 500 psi. This extreme water hammer propelled the entire reactor vessel upward at 27 ft/s, while the shield plugs were ejected at 85 ft/s. With six holes on the top of the reactor vessel, high-pressure water and steam sprayed the entire room with radioactive debris from the damaged core. A later investigation concluded that the 26,000 lb (or thirteen short tons) vessel had jumped 9 ft, parts of it striking the ceiling of the reactor building before settling back into its original location, and depositing insulation and gravel on the operating floor. If the vessel's #5 seal housing had not hit the overhead crane, it would have risen about 10 ft. The excursion, steam explosion, and vessel movement took two to four seconds.

The spray of water and steam knocked two operators onto the floor, killing one and severely injuring another. The No. 7 shield plug from the top of the reactor vessel impaled the third man through his groin and exited his shoulder, pinning him to the ceiling. The victims were Army Specialists Richard Leroy McKinley (age 27) and John A. Byrnes (age 22), and Navy Seabee Construction Electrician First Class (CE1) Richard C. Legg (age 26). It was later established by author Todd Tucker that Byrnes (the reactor operator) had lifted the rod and caused the excursion; Legg (the shift supervisor) was standing on top of the reactor vessel and was impaled and pinned to the ceiling; and McKinley (the trainee) stood nearby. Only McKinley was found alive, unconscious and in deep shock, by rescuers. This was consistent with the analysis of the SL-1 Board of Investigation and with the results of the autopsies, which suggested that Byrnes and Legg died instantly, while McKinley showed signs of diffuse bleeding within his scalp, indicating he survived about two hours before succumbing to his wounds. All three men died of physical trauma.

Reactor principles and events
Early press reports indicated that the explosion may have been due to a chemical reaction, but that was shortly ruled out. Fast neutron activation had occurred to various materials in the room, indicating a nuclear power excursion unlike a properly operating reactor.

In a thermal-neutron reactor such as SL-1, neutrons are moderated (slowed down) to control the nuclear fission process and increase the likelihood of fission with U-235 fuel. Without sufficient moderator, cores such as SL-1 would be unable to sustain a nuclear chain reaction. When the moderator is removed from the core, the chain reaction decreases. Water, when used as a moderator, is maintained under high pressure to keep it liquid. Steam formation in the channels around the nuclear fuel suppresses the chain reaction.

Another control is the effect of the delayed neutrons on the chain reaction in the core. Most neutrons (the neutrons) are produced nearly instantaneously by the fission of U-235. But a few—approximately 0.7 percent in a U-235-fueled reactor operating at steady-state—are produced through the relatively slow radioactive decay of certain fission products. (These fission products are trapped inside the fuel plates in close proximity to the uranium-235 fuel.) The delayed production of a fraction of the neutrons enables reactor power changes to be controlled on a time scale amenable to humans and machinery.

In the case of an ejected control assembly or poison, it is possible for the reactor to become critical (i.e. prompt critical). When the reactor is prompt critical, the time to double the power is of the order of 10 microseconds. The duration necessary for temperature to follow the power level depends on the design of the reactor core. Typically, the coolant temperature lags behind the power by 3 to 5 seconds in a conventional LWR. In the SL-1 design, it was about 6 milliseconds before steam formation started.

SL-1 was built with a main central control rod that could produce a very large excess reactivity if it were completely removed. The extra rod worth was in part due to the decision to load only 40 of the 59 fuel assemblies with nuclear fuel, thus making the prototype reactor core more active in the center. In normal operation control rods are withdrawn only far enough to generate sufficient reactivity for a sustained nuclear reaction and power generation. In this accident, however, the additional reactivity was enough to take the reactor prompt critical within an estimated 4 milliseconds. That was too fast for the heat from the fuel to permeate the aluminum cladding and boil enough water to fully stop the power growth in all parts of the core via negative moderator temperature and void feedback.

Post-accident analysis concluded that the final control method (i.e., dissipation of the prompt critical state and the end of the sustained nuclear chain reaction) occurred by means of catastrophic core disassembly: destructive melting, vaporization, and consequent conventional explosive expansion of the parts of the reactor core where the greatest amount of heat was being produced most quickly. It was estimated that this core heating and vaporization process happened in about 7.5 milliseconds, before enough steam had been formed to shut down the reaction, beating the steam shutdown by a few milliseconds. A key statistic makes it clear why the core blew apart: the reactor designed for a 3 MW power output operated momentarily at a peak of about 20 GW, a power density over 6,000 times higher than its safe operating limit. This criticality accident is estimated to have produced 4.4 × 1018 fissions, or about 133 MJ energy.

Events after the power excursion

Heat sensors above the reactor set off an alarm at the NRTS security facility at 9:01 pm MST, the time of the accident. False alarms had occurred in the morning and afternoon that same day. The response team of six firemen (Ken Dearden, assistant chief; Mel Hess, lieutenant.; Bob Archer; Carl Johnson; Egon Lamprecht; Gerald Stuart; Vern Conlon) arrived nine minutes later, expecting another false alarm. They noticed nothing unusual at first, with only a little steam rising from the building, normal for the cold 6 F night. The firefighters, unable to hail anyone inside the SL-1 facility, had a security guard open the gate for them. They donned their Scott Air-Paks, and arrived at the Support Facilities Building to investigate.

The building appeared normal, but was unoccupied. Three mugs of warm coffee were in the break room and three jackets were hanging nearby. They entered the reactor control room and noticed a radiation warning light. Their handheld radiation detector jumped sharply above its maximum range as they were climbing the stairs to SL-1's reactor operating floor level. This prompted a retreat for a second radiation detector. The second radiation detector also maxed out at its 200 röntgens per hour (R/hr) scale as they ascended again. They peered into the reactor room before withdrawing.

At 9:17 pm, a health physicist arrived; he and Assistant Chief Moshberger, both wearing air tanks and masks with positive pressure in the mask to force out any potential contaminants, approached the reactor building stairs. Their detectors read 25 röntgens per hour (R/hr) as they started up the stairs, and they withdrew. Finding a higher-scale ion chamber detector, the pair reached the top of the stairs to look inside the reactor room for the three missing men. Their Jordan Radector AG-500 meter pegged at 500 R/hr on the way up. They saw a dim, humid, wet, operating floor strewn with rocks and steel punchings, twisted metal, and debris scattered.

Coming from nearby Idaho Falls, the lead SL-1 health physicist, Ed Vallario, and Paul Duckworth, the SL-1 Operations Supervisor, arrived at SL-1 around 10:30 pm. The two donned air packs and went quickly into the administration building, through the support building, and up the stairs to the reactor floor. Half-way up the stairs, Vallario heard McKinley moaning. Finding him and a second operator on the floor who appeared to be dead, the two decided to return to the checkpoint and get help for the bleeding McKinley.

The two were joined by three health physicists who donned air packs and went with them back to the reactor floor. The masks on their air packs were fogging up, limiting visibility. McKinley was moving slightly, but his body was partially covered with metal debris, which the rescuers had to remove in order to carry him with a stretcher. Vallario also moved debris in his attempt to find the missing crewman. Byrnes was partially covered with steel pellets and blood. Another man checked for Byrnes' pulse and announced that he was dead.

Three men attempted to remove McKinley via the outside stairs, sending one man outside to meet them with a truck. But after carrying McKinley across the operating floor to the exit, they discovered equipment blocking the emergency exit door. This forced the rescuers to reverse course and use the main stairs.

During the movement of McKinley, two men had their Scott Air-Paks freeze up and cease to work. Duckworth evacuated due to the malfunction, while Vallario removed his mask and breathed contaminated air to complete the evacuation of McKinley. The rescue took about three minutes.

The evacuation of McKinley turned quickly into a major radiological problem. McKinley was first shuttled into a panel truck and then into the back of an ambulance. The on-call nurse, Helen Leisen, tending to the patient in the back of the ambulance, heard at least a faint breath, perhaps his last. But before the vehicle made it to nearby Highway 20, the AEC doctor had the nurse evacuate and, entering the ambulance, found no pulse. He pronounced the man dead at 11:14 pm. The contaminated ambulance, with the body of McKinley, was driven out into the desert and abandoned for several hours.

Four men had entered into the reactor building at 10:38 pm and found the third man. Legg was discovered last because he was pinned to the ceiling above the reactor by a shield plug and not easily recognizable.

Extensive decontamination was conducted that night. About 30 of the first responders took showers, scrubbed their hands with potassium permanganate, and changed their clothes. The body in the ambulance was later disrobed and returned to the ambulance, which took it to a nearby facility for storage and autopsy.

On the night of January 4, a team of six volunteers worked in pairs to recover Byrnes' body from the SL-1 operating floor. It was taken, also by ambulance, to the same facility.

After four days of planning, the third body, by far the most contaminated, was retrieved. Modifications to the reactor room had to be performed by a welder inside a lead shielded box attached to a crane. On January 9, in relays of two at a time, a team of ten men, allowed no more than 65 seconds exposure each, used sharp hooks on the end of long poles to pull Legg's body free of the No. 7 shield plug, dropping it onto a 5 by stretcher attached to a crane outside the building.

Radioactive copper 64Cu from a cigarette lighter screw on McKinley and a brass watch band buckle from Byrnes both proved that the reactor had indeed gone prompt critical. This was confirmed with several other readings, including gold 198Au from Legg's wedding ring. Nuclear accident dosimeters inside the reactor plant and particles of uranium from the victim's clothes also provided evidence of the excursion. Before these discoveries of neutron-activated elements in the men's belongings, scientists had doubted that a nuclear excursion had occurred, believing the reactor was inherently safe. Strontium-91, a major fission product, was also found with the uranium particles. These findings ruled out early speculation that a chemical explosion caused the accident.

Some sources and eyewitness accounts confuse the names and positions of each victim. In Idaho Falls: The Untold Story of America's First Nuclear Accident, the author indicates that the rescue teams identified Byrnes as the man found still alive, believing that Legg's body was the one found next to the reactor shield and recovered the night after the accident, and that McKinley was impaled by the control rod to the ceiling directly above the reactor. The misidentification, caused by the severe blast injuries to the victims, was rectified during the autopsies conducted by Clarence Lushbaugh, but this caused confusion for some time.

The seven rescuers who carried McKinley and received Carnegie Hero awards from the Carnegie Hero Fund in 1962 were: Edward Vallario, SL-1 Health Physicist; Paul Duckworth, the SL-1 Operations Supervisor; Sidney Cohen, the SL-1 Test supervisor; William Rausch, SL-1 Assistant Operations Supervisor; William Gammill, the on-duty AEC Site Survey Chief; Lovell Callister, health physicist, and Delos Richards, health physics technician.

Cause
One of the required maintenance procedures called for Rod 9 to be manually withdrawn about 4 in in order to attach it to the automated control mechanism from which it had been disconnected. Post-accident calculations, as well as examination of scratches on Rod 9, estimate that it had actually been withdrawn about 20 in, causing the reactor to go prompt critical and triggering the steam explosion. The most common theories proposed for the withdrawal of the rod are (1) sabotage or suicide by one of the operators, (2) a murder-suicide involving an affair with the wife of one of the other operators, (3) inadvertent withdrawal of the main control rod, or (4) an intentional attempt to "exercise" the rod (to make it travel more smoothly within its sheath). The maintenance logs do not address what the technicians were attempting to do, and thus the actual cause of the accident will never be known. However, it seems unlikely that it was a suicide.

Post-accident experiments were conducted with an identically weighted mock control rod to determine whether it was possible or feasible for one or two men to have withdrawn Rod 9 by 20 inches. Experiments included a simulation of the possibility that the 48 lb central rod was stuck and one man freed it himself, reproducing the scenario that investigators considered the best explanation: Byrnes broke the control rod loose and withdrew it accidentally, killing all three men. When testing the theory that Rod 9 was rapidly withdrawn manually, three men took part in timed trials and their efforts were compared to the energy of the nuclear excursion that had occurred.

"A spare SL-1 control rod actuator assembly was used for mock-up on which the speed of manual rod withdrawal was measured for several subjects. The equipment is the same as that on SL-1 except for the control rod, which is simulated by a weight to give a total movable load of 84 lb., the net weight of the SL-1 movable assembly in water. The test was conducted by instructing the subject to lift the rod as rapidly as possible, while an electric timer, measured the elapsed time from beginning of rod motion to some predetermined distance of withdrawal. Distances up to 30 inches were measured.

The above reasoning indicates that the required rate of rod withdrawal to produce a period as short as 5.3 milliseconds was well within the limits of human capability."

At SL-1, control rods would sometimes get stuck in the control rod channel. Numerous procedures were conducted to evaluate control rods to ensure they were operating properly. There were rod drop tests and scram tests of each rod, in addition to periodic rod exercising and rod withdrawals for normal operation. From February 1959 to November 18, 1960, there were 40 cases of a stuck control rod for scram and rod drop tests and about a 2.5% failure rate. From November 18 to December 23, 1960, there was a dramatic increase in stuck rods, with 23 in that time period and a 13.0% failure rate. Besides these test failures, there were an additional 21 rod-sticking incidents from February 1959 to December 1960; four of these had occurred in the last month of operation during routine rod withdrawal. Rod 9 had the best operational performance record even though it was operated more frequently than any of the other rods.

Rod sticking has been attributed to misalignment, corrosion product build-up, bearing wear, clutch wear, and drive mechanism seal wear. Many of the failure modes that caused a stuck rod during tests (like bearing and clutch wear) would apply only to a movement performed by the control rod drive mechanism. Since the No. 9 rod is centrally located, its alignment may have been better than Nos. 1, 3, 5, and 7, which were more prone to sticking. After the accident, logbooks and former plant operators were consulted to determine if there had been any rods stuck during the reassembly operation that Byrnes was performing. One person had performed this about 300 times, and another 250 times; neither had ever felt a control rod stick when being manually raised during this procedure. Furthermore, no one had ever reported a stuck rod during manual reconnection.

During congressional hearings in June 1961, the SL-1 Project Manager, W. B. Allred, admitted that the lack of supervision by CEI of SL-1 plant operation on an "around-the-clock basis" was because the Atomic Energy Commission (AEC) had rejected the idea "for budget reasons." Allred was also grilled on the matter of increased rod sticking between November 16, 1960, and the final shutdown on December 23. Of the increase, Allred stated, "I was not completely aware of significant increase" and, "I was not aware that this sharp increase had occurred." When asked who was the person responsible for informing him of the sticking problem, Allred said that Paul Duckworth, the SL-1 Operations Supervisor, should have reported this to him but did not. When pressed, Allred said that if he had known of the increased control rod sticking, he "would have shut the plant down for more detailed examination."

"The mechanical and material evidence, combined with the nuclear and chemical evidence, forced them to believe that the central control rod had been withdrawn very rapidly. The scientists questioned the [former operators of SL-1]: 'Did you know that the reactor would go critical if the central control rod were removed?' Answer: 'Of course! We often talked about what we would do if we were at a radar station and the Russians came. We'd yank it out.'"

Consequences
The accident caused SL-1's design to be abandoned and future reactors to be designed so that a single control rod removal could not produce very large excess reactivity. Today this is known as the "one stuck rod" criterion and requires complete shutdown capability even with the most reactive rod stuck in the fully withdrawn position. The documentation and procedures required for operating nuclear reactors expanded substantially and became far more formal; procedures that had previously taken two pages expanded to hundreds. Radiation meters were changed to allow higher ranges for emergency response activities.

Although portions of the center of SL-1's core had been vaporized briefly, very little corium was recovered. The fuel plates showed signs of catastrophic destruction leaving voids, but "no appreciable amount of glazed molten material was recovered or observed." Additionally, "There is no evidence of molten material having flowed out between the plates." It is believed that rapid cooling of the core was responsible for the small amount of molten material. There was insufficient heat generated for any corium to reach or penetrate the bottom of the reactor vessel.

The SL-1 reactor building contained most of the radioactivity, but iodine-131 levels on plant buildings downwind reached 50 times background levels during several days of monitoring. Radiation surveys of the Support Facilities Building, for example, indicated high contamination in halls, but light contamination in offices. Radiation exposure limits before the accident were 100 röntgens to save a life and 25 to save valuable property. During the response to the accident, 22 people received doses of 3 to 27 Röntgens full-body exposure. Removal of radioactive waste and disposal of the three bodies eventually exposed 790 people to harmful levels of radiation. In March 1962, the AEC awarded certificates of heroism to 32 participants in the response.

After a pause for evaluation of procedures, the Army continued its use of reactors, operating the Mobile Low-Power Reactor (ML-1), which started full-power operation on February 28, 1963, becoming the smallest nuclear power plant on record to do so. This design was eventually abandoned after corrosion problems. While the tests had shown that nuclear power was likely to have lower total costs, the financial pressures of the Vietnam War caused the Army to favor lower initial costs and it stopped the development of its reactor program in 1965, although the existing reactors continued operating (MH-1A until 1977).

Cleanup
General Electric was hired to remove the reactor vessel and dismantle and clean up the contaminated buildings at the SL-1 project site. The site was cleaned from 1961 to 1962, removing the bulk of the contaminated debris and burying it. The massive cleanup operation included the transport of the reactor vessel to a nearby "hot shop" for extensive analysis. Other items of less importance were disposed of or transported to decontamination sites for various kinds of cleaning. About 475 people took part in the SL-1 site cleanup, including volunteers from the U.S. Army and the Atomic Energy Commission.

The recovery operation included clearing the operating room floor of radioactive debris. The extremely high radiation areas surrounding the reactor vessel and the fan room directly above it contributed to the difficulty of recovering the reactor vessel. Remotely operated equipment, cranes, boom trucks, and safety precautions had to be developed and tested by the recovery team. Radiation surveys and photographic analysis was used to determine what items needed to be removed from the building first. Powerful vacuum cleaners, operated manually by teams of men, collected vast quantities of debris. The manual overhead crane above the operating floor was used to move numerous heavy objects weighing up to 19600 lbs for them to be dumped out onto the ground outside. Hot spots up to 400 R/hr were discovered and removed from the work area.

With the operating room floor relatively clean and radiation fields manageable, the manual overhead crane was employed to do a trial lift of the reactor vessel. The crane was fitted with a dial-type load indicator and the vessel was lifted a few inches. The successful test found that the estimated 23000 lb vessel plus an unknown amount of debris weighed about 26000 lbs. After removing a large amount of the building structure above the reactor vessel, a 60-ton Manitowoc Model 3900 crane lifted the vessel out of the building into an awaiting transport cask attached to a tractor-trailer combination with a low-boy 60-ton capacity trailer. After raising or removing 45 power lines, phone lines, and guy wires from the proposed roadway, the tractor-trailer, accompanied by numerous observers and supervisors, proceeded at about 10 mph to the ANP Hot Shop (originally associated with the Aircraft Nuclear Propulsion program), located in a remote area of the NRTS known as Test Area North, about 35 miles away.

A burial ground was constructed about 1600 ft northeast of the original site of the reactor. It was opened on May 21, 1961. Burial of the waste helped minimize radiation exposure to the public and site workers that would have resulted from transport of contaminated debris from SL-1 to the Radioactive-Waste Management Complex over 16 mi of public highway. The original cleanup of the site took about 24 months. The entire reactor building, contaminated materials from nearby buildings, and soil and gravel contaminated during cleanup operations were buried in the burial ground. The majority of buried materials consist of soils and gravel. Recovered portions of the reactor core, including the fuel and all other parts of the reactor that were important to the accident investigation, were taken to the ANP Hot Shop for study. After the accident investigation was complete, the reactor fuel was sent to the Idaho Chemical Processing Plant for reprocessing. The reactor core minus the fuel, along with the other components sent to the Hot Shop for study, was eventually disposed of at the Radioactive Waste Management Complex.

The remains of SL-1 were buried at 43.52167°N, -112.81806°W, about 500 m northeast of the original site (about 5 miles north of Atomic City and Atomic Motor Raceway). The burial site consists of three excavations, in which a total volume of 99,000 ft3 of contaminated material was deposited. The excavations were dug as close to basalt as the equipment used would allow and ranges from 8 to 14 feet in depth. At least 2 ft of clean backfill was placed over each excavation. Shallow mounds of soil over the excavations were added at the completion of cleanup activities in September 1962. The site and burial mound are collectively known as United States Environmental Protection Agency Superfund Operable Unit 5-05.

Numerous radiation surveys and cleanup of the surface of the burial ground and surrounding area have been performed in the years since the SL-1 accident. Aerial surveys were performed by EG&G Las Vegas in 1974, 1982, 1990, and 1993. The Radiological and Environmental Sciences Laboratory conducted gamma radiation surveys every three to four years between 1973 and 1987 and every year between 1987 and 1994. Particle-picking at the site was performed in 1985 and 1993. Results from the surveys indicated that cesium-137 and its progeny (decay products) are the primary surface-soil contaminants. During a survey of surface soil in June 1994, "hot spots," areas of higher radioactivity, were found within the burial ground with activities ranging from 0.1 to 50 milliroentgen (mR)/hour. On November 17, 1994, the highest radiation reading measured at 2.5 ft above the surface at the SL-1 burial ground was 0.5 mR/hour; local background radiation was 0.2 mR/hour. A 1995 assessment by the EPA recommended that a cap be placed over the burial mounds. The primary remedy for SL-1 was to be containment by capping with an engineered barrier constructed primarily of native materials. This remedial action was completed in 2000 and first reviewed by the EPA in 2003.

Movies and books

The U.S. government produced a film about the accident for internal use in the 1960s. The video was subsequently released and can be viewed at The Internet Archive and YouTube. SL-1 is the title of a 1983 movie, written and directed by Diane Orr and C. Larry Roberts, about the nuclear reactor explosion. Interviews with scientists, archival film, and contemporary footage, as well as slow-motion sequences, are used in the film. The events of the accident are also the subject of one book: Idaho Falls: The untold story of America's first nuclear accident (2003) and 2 chapters in Proving the Principle – A History of The Idaho National Engineering and Environmental Laboratory, 1949–1999 (2000).

In 1975, the anti-nuclear book We Almost Lost Detroit, by John G. Fuller was published, referring at one point to the Idaho Falls accident. Prompt Critical is the title of a 2012 short film, viewable on YouTube, written and directed by James Lawrence Sicard, dramatizing the events surrounding the SL-1 accident. A documentary about the accident was shown on the History Channel.

Another author, Todd Tucker, studied the accident and published a book detailing the historical aspects of nuclear reactor programs of the U.S. military branches. Tucker used the Freedom of Information Act to obtain reports, including autopsies of the victims, writing in detail how each person died and how parts of their bodies were severed, analyzed, and buried as radioactive waste. The autopsies were performed by the same pathologist known for his work following the Cecil Kelley criticality accident. Tucker explains the reasoning behind the autopsies and the severing of victims' body parts, one of which gave off 1,500 R/hour on contact. Because the SL-1 accident killed all three of the military operators on site, Tucker calls it "the deadliest nuclear reactor incident in U.S. history."

title: SL-1


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Siedlce

Siedlce (שעדליץ ) is a city in eastern Poland with 77,354 inhabitants. Situated in the Masovian Voivodeship (since 1999), previously the city was the capital of a separate Siedlce Voivodeship (1975–1998). The city is situated between two small rivers, the Muchawka and the Helenka, and lies along the European route E30, around 90 km east of Warsaw. It is the fourth largest city of the Voivodeship, and the seat of the Roman Catholic Diocese of Siedlce. Siedlce is a local educational, cultural and business center.

History
The city, which is a part of the historical province of Lesser Poland, was most probably founded some time before the 15th century, and was first mentioned as Siedlecz in a document issued in 1448. In 1503, local nobleman Daniel Siedlecki erected a new village of the same name nearby, together with a church. In 1547 the town was granted Magdeburg rights by King Sigismund the Old. Siedlce as an urban center was created after a merger of the two neighboring villages. It was a private town, administratively located in the Lublin Voivodeship in the Lesser Poland Province. In the 16th century, and until the mid-17th century, Siedlce prospered, with its population quickly growing and a number of artisans opening their shops here. The period of prosperity ended during the Swedish invasion of Poland (1655–1660), when Siedlce, together with most Lesser Poland's towns and cities, was burned by the Cossacks, Tatars, Muscovities, Swedes and the Transylvanians. After these conflicts, the town belonged to the Czartoryski family, as a dowry of Joanna Olędzka, who married Prince Michał Jerzy Czartoryski. In 1692 Siedlce burned again, and the destruction was used by Kazimierz Czartoryski, the son of Michał Jerzy, to plan a new, modern market square, together with adjacent streets. In the first half of the 18th century, a new parish church was built. In 1775, after Aleksandra Czartoryska married Hetman Michał Kazimierz Ogiński, the town passed over to the Ogiński family. At that time Siedlce emerged as one of the most important cultural centers of the nation. The Ogiński Palace was visited by several notable artists and writers, such as Franciszek Karpiński, and Julian Ursyn Niemcewicz. King Stanisław August Poniatowski visited the palace twice, in 1783 and 1793. Due to efforts of Aleksandra Ogińska, several improvements took place in Siedlce. Among them, a new town hall was built, which now is one of the symbols of the city.

Partitions of Poland
Siedlce remained a private town until the military Partitions of Poland, when it changed hands several times. During the third partition of Poland (1795), Siedlce was annexed by the Habsburg Empire, and became the seat of Kreisamt (1795–1809) in the Austrian Partition.

In 1809 Siedlce became part of the Polish Duchy of Warsaw established by Napoleon, within which it was the capital of the Siedlce Department. Following his defeat, during the creation of the Russian-controlled Congress Poland (1815), Siedlce became the seat of a province in the Russian Partition (see Podlasie Governorate). During the November Uprising against Russian domination, the Battle of Iganie (10 April 1831) took place near the town. In the January Uprising of 1863, Siedlce was again an important center of the anti-Tsarist rebellion. In 1867 the Siedlce Governorate was created. Siedlce continued to develop with new administration buildings, a post office complex, a courthouse, and a new prison. In the late 19th century, Siedlce became an important railroad junction, with connections to Warsaw (completed 1866), Brest Litovsk (1867), Małkinia Górna (1884), and Czeremcha (1906). In the beginning of the 20th century, local students launched a protest against the ruthless Russification policies. Subsequently, in 1906 the Russian secret police organized the Siedlce pogrom in order to terrorize the locals. At that time, Siedlce was an important center of Jewish culture, with Jews making up 50% of the population.

Interbellum and World War II
In the Second Polish Republic, since the return to independence in 1918, Siedlce belonged to the Lublin Voivodeship (1919–39) in the central part of the country (unlike today) with the provincial capital in Lublin. During the Polish–Soviet War, the city was briefly captured by the Russians, and then recaptured by Poles on 17 August 1920. On 19 August 1920, after the Polish victory in the Battle of Warsaw, Marshal Józef Piłsudski, Prime Minister Wincenty Witos and Minister Maciej Rataj held a meeting in the city. Within interwar Poland, the city remained an important rail junction and was the location of a military garrison, where the 9th Infantry Division was stationed before the German-Soviet invasion of Poland, which started World War II in September 1939.

During the invasion of Poland, Germany bombed Polish civilian refugees on the road from Warsaw to Siedlce, and the city was captured and then occupied by Germany until 1944. The Polish government evacuated the Polish gold reserve, part of which was stored in Siedlce, to Polish-allied France. In mid-September 1939, the German Einsatzgruppe V entered the city to commit atrocities against Poles. Siedlce was included within the Warsaw District of the General Government (German-occupied central Poland). During the war, the area of Siedlce was home to a large partisan force of the Home Army and other underground organizations, such as Armia Ludowa. Due to German terror, the town lost one-third of its population, including its entire Jewish community deported to extermination camps during the Holocaust. The Germans operated the Stalag 366 prisoner-of-war camp for Polish, Italian, French and Soviet POWs in the city with subcamps in Suchożebry and Biała Podlaska. In late July 1944 (see Operation Tempest), Home Army units freed the town, together with the Red Army. After the war, 50% of Siedlce was in ruins, including the town hall.

Jewish history
Until the Holocaust, like many other cities in Europe, Siedlce had a significant Jewish population. At some times, indeed, Jews were the majority of its population. The presence of Jews at Siedlce is attested from the mid-16th century – inn keepers, merchants and artisans. A Jewish hospital existed in the town since the early 18th century. In 1794, a Beit Midrash (study hall) was founded in the town and 1798 the Jewish cemetery was extended, testifying to the increase of the community. These changes coincided with the town coming under Austrian rule with the Third Partition of Poland. Austrian rule lasted until 1809. It was passed to Russian rule in 1815 formally (in 1813 de facto), that lasted for over a hundred years. Until 1819, the Jewish community of Warsaw, 90 km to the west, was formally subject to the authority of the Siedlce rabbis.

As a result of Russian discriminatory policies for much of the 19th century – a time when the town's population steadily increased – Jews were the majority of Siedlce's population: 3,727 (71.5%) in 1839; 4,359 (65%) in 1841; 5,153 (67.5%) in 1858; 8,156 (64%) in 1878. Later on, the percentage of Jews decreased due to non-Jewish migration: according to the Russian census of 1897, out of the total population of 23,700, Jews constituted 11,400 (so around 48% percent). The first Polish census, in 1921, recorded 14,685 Jews living in Siedlce. Their number remained steady in the interwar period, and in 1939, on the eve of the Second World War, there were some 15,000 Jews living in the town.

In the late 19th and early 20th centuries, secular political and cultural activity was evident among Jews in Siedlce, similar to other parts of Central and Eastern Europe. In 1900, the Bund started activity in the town, as did the Zionist movement, and many of the town's Jews were adherents of the Polish Socialist Party. Between 1911 and 1939, two Yiddish weeklies were published in the town, and a Jewish high school was founded during the First World War.

In the last decades of Tsarist rule, many Siedlce activists (both Polish and Jewish) took part in the 1905 Revolution. After a series of attacks on Russians in all of Poland on Bloody Wednesday (15 August 1906) the Russian authorities organized a pogrom in Siedlce in reprisal on 8–10 September 1906,   in which 26 Jews perished. In the wake of the First World War the town was affected by the Polish-Soviet War, being occupied by the Red Army in 1920 and taken over by the Polish Army in 1921.

World War II
In 1939, Jews constituted some 37% of the town's population. Germans deported over a thousand Jews from elsewhere in Poland to Siedlce in 1940, especially from Łódź, Kalisz and Pabianice. In March 1941, – still before the formal decision to implement the "Final Solution" which meant the wholesale extermination of the Jews – German Order Police battalions rampaged for three days in Siedlce, killing many of its Jewish inhabitants. In August of the same year, the Jews were forced into the new Siedlce Ghetto. It consisted of several small city blocks and over a dozen walkable streets in the city centre. On 1 October 1941, the ghetto was completely cut off from the outside world. In August 1942, some 10,000 Siedlce Jews were deported to Treblinka and murdered there together with a similar number of Jews from three nearby transit ghettos: in Łosice, holding local Jews and families from Huszlew, Olszanka, and Świniarów; in Sarnaki, with Jews from Górki, Kornica, Łysów; and the third transit ghetto with prisoners from Mordy, Krzesk-Królowa Niwa, Przesmyki, Stok Ruski, and Tarków. The town's remaining Jews imprisoned at the "little ghetto" were sent off to extermination on 25 November 1942.

The Siedlce Jewish community was not restored after the Nazi defeat, and the town's later history lacked the hitherto conspicuous Jewish component. Survivors of the town's population established an association in Israel which in 1956 published a comprehensive memorial book on the community's history. In 1971, Y. Kravitz, one of the survivors, published his memoirs entitled "Five Years of Living Hell under Nazi Rule in the City of Siedlce".

Climate
Siedlce has an oceanic climate (Köppen climate classification: Cfb) using the -3 C isotherm or a humid continental climate (Köppen climate classification: Dfb) using the 0 C isotherm.

The lowest air temperature of Poland was recorded in Siedlce on January 11, 1940: -41 °C.

Points of interest
Among the historic architecture of the city are:
 * Ogiński Palace complex with the Aleksandria Park, the Holy Cross Chapel (Ogiński Chapel) and the present-day State Archive
 * Old town hall
 * Siedlce Cathedral
 * St. Stanislaus Church
 * Polish Post Office (Classicist)
 * former guardhouse (Classicist), now housing a public library
 * Classicist building of the former theater
 * Neoclassicist building of the National Bank of Poland (architect: Marian Lalewicz)
 * District Court
 * Resursa Obywatelska
 * Preserved old townhouses

Culture
The city is a cultural hub for the entire province, with festivals, exhibitions, and concerts of country-wide significance. The town has three museums and three public libraries. The principal animators of culture operating in the city are the Culture and Art Center (CKiS) and the Municipal Cultural Centre (MOK). There are two movie theatres; the art-house cinema run by the CKiS, and the multiscreen cinema Novekino network. A number of artistic groups operate in the city, including the dance companies LUZ and Caro Dance, the Choir of the City of Siedlce, and the ES Theatre. The city also has an art gallery located at the University. A painting by El Greco, "The Ecstasy of St. Francis", is preserved there. It is the only El Greco painting in Poland.

Among the media outlets which operate in this area are the local television (TV Siedlce) and the Catholic radio station Radio Podlasie. Siedlce is the location of the regional headquarters of the TVP Warsaw/TVP Info, RDC (Radio For You) and Radio Eska.

Siedlce serves as the location of The Office PL, the Polish adaptation of The Office.

Sport
The city's most popular sports clubs are:
 * MKP Pogoń Siedlce – football club, currently playing in the second division
 * MKS Pogoń Siedlce – rugby club, playing in the Rugby Ekstraliga, finishing 2nd in 2014 and 3rd in 2017, 2018 and 2019
 * WKS 22 pp Siedlce – defunct football club, which played in the top division in the 1930s

Higher learning

 * Uniwersytet w Siedlcach (University in Siedlce)
 * Collegium Mazovia Innowacyjna Szkoła Wyższa (Collegium Mazovia Innovative Higher School)
 * Wyższe Seminarium Duchowne Diecezji Siedleckiej (Seminary of the Diocese of Siedlce)
 * Instytut Teologiczny w Siedlcach (Institute of Theology in Siedlce)

Notable secondary schools

 * I LO im. Bolesława Prusa (Bolesław Prus High School)
 * II LO im. Św. Królowej Jadwigi (St. Queen Jadwiga High School)
 * I Katolickie Liceum Ogólnokształcące im. Świętej Rodziny (Holy Family Catholic High School)
 * IV LO im. Hetmana Stanisława Żółkiewskiego (Hetman Stanisław Żółkiewski High School)
 * Zespół Szkół Ponadgimnazjalnych nr 1 im. Stanisława Staszica (Stanisław Staszic High School Complex)
 * Zespół Szkół Ponadgimnazjalnych nr 3 im. Stanisława Staszica (Stanisław Staszic High School Complex)

Twin towns — Sister cities
Siedlce is twinned with:

Notable people

 * Bohdan Arct (1914–1973), fighter pilot, writer
 * Artur Boruc (born 1980), a football goalkeeper
 * Richard Burgin (1892–1981), Jewish composer who attended St. Petersburg Conservatory and became the concert master for the Boston Symphony Orchestra
 * Vladimir Chelomei (1914–1984), Soviet Academician and scientist in the field of mechanics and control processes; designer of missiles, spacecraft, and space stations; founder and the General Constructor of OKB-52 (now NPO Mashinostroyenia).
 * Lidia Chojecka (born 1977), Polish middle-distance runner who specializes in the 1500 metres and sometimes 3000 metres
 * Aleksander Fogiel (1910–1996), theatre and film actor, director, theatre director and designer
 * Izrael Hieger (1901–1986), biochemist
 * Aleksandra Klejnowska (born 1982), weightlifter
 * Jacob Stodolsky, Yiddish poet and editor, member of the Introspectivist Literary group in early 20th century
 * Przemysław Truściński (born 1972), artist
 * Louis Waller (1935–2019), Australian law professor
 * Agata Wróbel (born 1981), weightlifter, 2000 Summer Olympics silver medallist
 * Maciej Rosołek (born 2001), footballer

title: Siedlce


text:
Mińsk Mazowiecki

Mińsk Mazowiecki ( "Masovian Minsk") is a town in eastern Poland with 40,999 inhabitants (2020). It is situated in the Masovian Voivodeship and is a part of the Warsaw metropolitan area. It is the capital of Mińsk County. Located 20 kilometers from the city limits of Warsaw and 38 kilometers from Warsaw's center.

Name
The source of town name - Mińsk - is the Mienia River, which in turn derives from the verb  'mienić' , which means 'to shine'. The postnominal adjective ' Mazowiecki' shows the historical connection to Mazovia and distinguishes Mińsk Mazowiecki from the Belarusian capital of Minsk.

Location
Mińsk Mazowiecki is located historically in the region of Mazovia and administratively in the eastern part of Masovian Voivodeship, 37 km east from Warsaw's Center and 20 km from Warsaw's border.

History
The first mention of a settlement with commercial function comes from the 14th century. On 29 May 1421, Duke Janusz I of Warsaw from the Piast dynasty granted Mińsk town privileges. The first wooden church was built in 1422, however, it was not preserved. In 1549, the town of Sendomierz was located on the other side of Srebrna River. In 1629, the present church was opened. In 1695, Sendomierz was merged with Mińsk. The 18th century was a time of gradual decline of Mińsk connected with gradual decline of the Polish–Lithuanian Commonwealth.

Following the Third Partition of Poland, in 1795, the town was annexed by Austria. After the Polish victory in the Austro-Polish War of 1809, it became part of the short-lived Polish Duchy of Warsaw. After the duchy's dissolution, in 1815, it became part of Russian-controlled Congress Poland. During the November Uprising, it was the site of two battles between Polish insurgents and Russian troops, fought on 26 April and 14 July 1831.

In 1866, the Mińsk County was established, and the first train arrived to Mińsk (Warsaw–Terespol Railway). In 1867, the name of the town was changed to Nowomińsk (Novominsk). In 1870, the Dernałowicz Family became the last owners of the town (up to the Second World War). In 1886, the first bookstore in east Mazovia was founded in the town.

In 1910 or 1912, the Maria Grochowska's School was opened (present-day Polska Macierz Szkolna High School). In 1914, the old church was reopened after reconstruction, and the following year the present hospital was opened.

During World War I, it was occupied by Germany from 1915 to 1918. In 1916, the town was renamed to Mińsk Mazowiecki. In 1918, Poland regained independence and control of Mińsk. During the Polish–Soviet War, it was briefly occupied by the Russians on 16 August 1920, and then recaptured by the Poles the next day. On 18 August 1920 Marshal Józef Piłsudski stayed in the town. In the interbellum, the town enjoyed great development, and in 1937 the first electric train arrived. The 7th Lublin Uhlan Regiment was stationed in Mińsk Mazowiecki in the interbellum, and nowadays there is a museum dedicated to the unit in the town.

On 13 September 1939, it was the site of the Battle of Mińsk Mazowiecki between Poles led by General Władysław Anders and the invading German army. Afterwards it fell under German occupation. In 1939, some expelled Poles from Barcin, Kępno, Ostrzeszów, Rychtal and Szubin were deported to Mińsk Mazowiecki. In October 1940, the occupiers established the Mińsk Mazowiecki Ghetto, which was eventually liquidated on 21 July 1942, with most of the Jewish residents murdered at the Treblinka extermination camp in one of the first episodes of the Holocaust. Two Poles who were held by the Germans in the local prison for rescuing Jews were liberated by the Polish resistance. On 30 July 1944, Mińsk Mazowiecki was liberated by the Polish underground Home Army (prelude to the Warsaw Uprising), however, the Soviets occupied the town the next day. On 2–3 March 1945, the Soviets carried out executions of the local Polish elite, including Mayor Hipolit Konopka. After the war, the town was restored to Poland, although with a Soviet-installed communist regime, which stayed in power until the Fall of Communism in the 1980s.

In 1952, the ZNTK Mińsk Mazowiecki train construction factory was founded. In 1957, Mińsk Mazowiecki became a military garrison. A new train station was opened in 1979. Solidarity events took place in 1985. In 1990, Zbigniew Grzesiak was elected Mayor in first post-WWII free elections. In 1999, the Mińsk County was established.

Jewish history
In 1768, the restrictions on permanent residence for Jewish people in Mińsk had been lifted. From the 19th century to the 1930s, it became very popular. Before the Second World War, there were thousands of Jews living in Mińsk, and they had a general synagogue and smaller temples. The Novominsk hasidic dynasty was founded here in the late 19th century by Rabbi Yaakov Perlow, a descendant of the Baal Shem Tov.

Soon after the war began, the Germans created the Mińsk Ghetto. It was liquidated on 21 July 1942. Most of the Jews were murdered in Treblinka extermination camp sent in Holocaust trains by the thousands. The remaining Jewish population were murdered in Mińsk on 10 January 1943 (500 people) and 5 June (the last 150 people).

Monuments

 * layout of medieval settlement and later city
 * Palace of Doria Dernałowicz Family – built probably in the 17th century (in place of 16th century residence), converted to classicism
 * park
 * Church of the Nativity of The Blessed Virgin Mary – built in the 17th century, converted to neo-baroque in the early 20th century
 * internal furnishing
 * cemetery
 * county hall (former), 19th century, classicism
 * county hall, 19th century
 * post office, 19th century, empire
 * church of Mariavite Church, 1911
 * residential areas, 19th and early 20th century
 * Jewish cemetery
 * some school buildings (early 20th century)

Economy
Trade:
 * hypermarket Carrefour
 * supermarkets (about 10)
 * many other shops
 * market
 * developers

Service:
 * 10 banks
 * fast-foods, pubs and restaurants
 * 3 hotels
 * construction industry
 * car service
 * satellite communication

Industry:
 * ZNTK "Mińsk Mazowiecki" (since 2008 a subsidiary PESA SA) – maintenance and repair of railway rolling stock
 * Fabryka Urządzeń Dźwigowych – production of cranes and other heavy machinery
 * cotton products
 * yachts
 * shoes
 * foil

Education

 * Józef Majka College of Social Science (catholic)
 * Stanisław Staszic Lifelong Learning Center
 * University of Third Age
 * Polska Macierz Szkolna Gymnasium and High School
 * Salesian Elementary, Gymnasium and High School (catholic)
 * Kazimierz Wielki Professional High School
 * Powstańcy Warszawy Professional High School
 * High School of Economy
 * Maria Skłodowska-Curie High School
 * 3 public gymnasiums
 * 4 public elementary schools
 * over 10 preschools (6 public)
 * special school (for kids with problems)
 * clinic of psychological and pedagogical help

Bureaus

 * Regional Bureau of Environmental Protection Inspection
 * Point of Conscription
 * Above Forester Bureau (Nadleśnictwo Mińsk)
 * County, city and commune bureaus

Safety

 * Police Department of Mińsk County – 2 building in Mińsk, dozens of cars (including sport cars and off-road cars)
 * Fire Department of Mińsk County – quite new fire engines (well equipped after big fire in industry area a few years ago)
 * Public Hospital of Mińsk County

Culture and sports
Culture:
 * House of Culture
 * School of Art
 * 2 libraries
 * 2 museums
 * Cinema
 * Magazines (2 public and 3 commercial are published in Mińsk)

Sport:
 * Miejski Ośrodek Sportu i Rekreacji (public sport and recreation department)
 * 2 stadiums
 * Ice rink
 * Other
 * Mazovia-ZNTK
 * Football team in local amateur league
 * Other sports
 * other clubs

Religions

 * Roman Catholic Church (4 parishes and other structures)
 * Mariavite Church (1 parish)
 * Baptist (1 congregation)
 * Mennonite (1 congregation)

Public transport

 * Train station
 * Regular service (39 trains in one way daily) to Warsaw
 * Direct connections with many cities in Poland, and with Moscow
 * 2 regular bus services to Warsaw

Lands
Overall: 13.12 km2
 * Residential: 30%
 * Industrial: 6%
 * Communication (roads, railroads etc.): 15%
 * Agricultural: 29%
 * Parks: 5%
 * Other: 15%

Historical parts of city
Cities:
 * Mińsk – old town
 * Sendomierz (found 1549, joined 1695)

Estates built as part of Mińsk:
 * Nowe Miasto – Miasto Ogród – New Town – Garden Town (found 1936)
 * Concrete estates built in socialist realism (about 1945–1990) without names
 * Modern estates without names

Villages:
 * Over railroad part of city (all existed in 1839 and earlier)
 * Kędzierak (joined partly in 1954 and fully in 1984)
 * Stankowizna (joined in 19th or 20th century)
 * Anielina (joined in similar time as Kędzierak)
 * Other
 * Górki (joined in the 18th century)
 * Goździk (joined during First War War)
 * Kolonia Stasinów (joined in 1936)
 * Pohulanka (joined partly in 1936)
 * Sewerynów (joined in similar time as Kędzierak)

Military

 * Military police
 * 23rd Air Base with MIG-29 aircraft

Twin towns – sister cities
Mińsk Mazowiecki is twinned with:

 * 🇺🇦 Borodianka, Ukraine
 * 🇨🇿 Krnov, Czech Republic
 * 🇺🇸 Lacey, United States
 * 🇬🇷 Pefki, Greece
 * 🇫🇷 Saint-Égrève, France
 * 🇱🇹 Telšiai, Lithuania

Notable people

 * Julian Grobelny, Righteous Among the Nations
 * Louis B. Mayer, Hollywood film producer and studio executive
 * Czesław Mroczek, poseł
 * Teresa Wargocka, poseł
 * Moshe Carmel, politician in Israel
 * Stefan Żeromski, writer
 * Jan Himilsbach, actor and author
 * Leyb Rokhman, Yiddish writer in Israel
 * Hanna Dunowska, actor
 * Victor Prus, architect in Canada
 * Yeshurun Keshet Israeli poet, essayist, translator and literary critic
 * Jacques Kalisz, architect in France
 * Stanislav Redens, secret police officer in the Soviet Union
 * Hermann Birnbach, subject of a Stolperstein in Nordhausen
 * Marek Piotrowski, World Champion in Kickboxing
 * Rafał Jackiewicz, boxer

Books

 * 585 lat Mińska Mazowieckiego, red. Janusz Kuligowski, Mińsk Mazowiecki, 2006, ISBN 8390693674

title: Mińsk Mazowiecki


text:
Łuków

Łuków  is a city in eastern Poland with 30,727 inhabitants (as of January 1, 2005). Since 1999, it has been situated in the Lublin Voivodeship, previously it had belonged to the Siedlce Voivodeship (between 1975–1998). It is the capital of Łuków County.

The town has an area of 35.75 km2, of which forests make up 13%. Łuków is located on the Southern Krzna river, at approximately 160 meters above sea level. For 500 years Łuków, together with neighboring towns Siedlce and Radzyń Podlaski, was part of Lesser Poland, and was located in the extreme northeastern corner of the province. Some time in the 19th century, it became associated with another historical region of Poland, Podlasie.

Etymology
The name of the town first appeared in documents in 1233 (Castelani nostri de Lucow). Łuków comes from Old Slavic word łuk, which means "a place located in a wetland".

History
Łuków was established as a grod, around the year 1233. It guarded eastern border of the Sandomierz Land, against warring tribes from the East including the Yotvingians and the Lithuanians. In the first half of the 13th century, Łuków was the seat of Lesser Poland's castellany, positioned in a strategic corner of the province. After prince of Kraków and Sandomierz Bolesław V the Chaste brought here the Knights Templar (1250–1257), a Roman Catholic Diocese of Łuków was established here. It existed for a very short time (1254–1257), and was closed after protests of the Teutonic Knights. In the late Middle Ages, Łuków was frequently invaded and destroyed by the Old Prussians, Yotvingians, Lithuanians, and Tatars. The city life improved only after 1385 (see Union of Krewo), when Poland and Lithuania became allies. In 1403, Łuków was officially granted a charter, codifying its legal status. The town originally belonged to the Sandomierz Voivodeship, but in 1474, it became part of the Lublin Voivodeship (1474–1795).

Łuków frequently burned (1517, 1528, 1530). Its period of prosperity in the first half of the 17th century came to an end after the Swedish Deluge (1655–1660), when it was ransacked and burned by the Swedes. In the second half of the 18th century, Łuków had some 3,000 residents. The town began a slow recovery, but in 1782, in a great fire, it almost completely burned, and as a result, its population decreased by 50%. At that time, Łuków was a prominent center of education in the region. In 1701, Piarist monks opened a college in Łuków, which later became one of the first in Poland to carry out the reforms of the Commission of National Education.

During the Partitions of Poland, Łuków was annexed by the Austrian Empire (1795), but since 1815, it was part of the Russian-controlled Congress Poland. Its inhabitants took active role in Polish uprisings of the 19th century (November Uprising, January Uprising). Russian discriminatory policies brought an end to education in the town, as the high school was moved to Siedlce. After Poland regained its independence as the Second Polish Republic in 1918, Łuków was again assigned to the Lublin Voivodeship. It was home to a military garrison with several mounted units stationed there. Jews made up about 50% of the population. Almost all of them were murdered in the Holocaust.

World War II
In May 1941 a large Jewish ghetto was formed by German administration. It was fenced-out in mid-September 1942, and liquidated before the end of the same year. The number of inmates was nearly 12,000. Deportations took place on the 5th and 8 October, and the 7th and 8 November. Around 9,000 Jews were put onto Holocaust trains and sent to Treblinka extermination camp where they were murdered. Approximately 2,200 inmates were shot locally into execution pits. On 28 October, more Jews were brought in from Adamów, Wojcieszków, Kock, Tuchowicz, and Trzebieszów, about 4,500 in total. Many were executed locally, while others were sent to Treblinka along with the locals. After the wave of deportations and transfers, the ghetto was rearranged as a slave labor camp for Jewish workers employed in the Gestapo warehouses. In December 1942, approximately 500 of them were shot dead. Five months later, on May 2, 1943, the remaining 3,000–4,000 Jews were transported to Treblinka extermination camp. Only about 150 Jews of Łuków survived the Holocaust, mostly in the USSR. They migrated to Israel, Western Europe, and the United States of America.

Also, Łuków was an important center of anti-German resistance (see Home Army). On 4 September 1939, the German Luftwaffe bombed Łuków's train station causing many civilian deaths as a result.

Post-World War II
After the war, two large factories were built in town: the "Lukbut" shoe factory and a meat plant owned by Henryk Stokłosa.

Among the popular points of interest are:
 * Bernardine church and monastery (second half of the 18th century)
 * Late Baroque Collegiate Church (1733–1762)
 * 19th century railway station

Transport
Łuków railway station is an important railroad junction, located on the strategic east-west line from Brest-Litovsk to Warsaw and Berlin. Other lines stemming from Łuków are the connections to Dęblin and to Skierniewice.

Education

 * Wyższa Szkoła Biznesu i Administracji
 * Medyczne Studium Zawodowe
 * I Liceum Ogólnokształcące im. Tadeusza Kościuszki (Tadeusz Kościuszko High School)
 * IV Liceum Ogólnokształcące im. Jana Pawła II (John Paul II High School)
 * Zespół Szkół Nr 1 im. Henryka Sienkiewicza
 * Zespół Szkół Nr 2 im. Aleksandra Świętochowskiego
 * Zespół Szkół Nr 3 im. Władysława Stanisława Reymonta
 * Language Inspiration - Angielski z Anglikami

title: Łuków


text:
User talk:Richard Smith~enwiki

Hey Richard,

I found that a terrorist named Ramzi Yousef had once used an alias called "Doctor Richard Smith".

Is it okay if I turn "Richard Smith" into a disambiguation page (with a link pointing to your user name and one pointing to Yousef)? WhisperToMe 00:37, 4 Dec 2003 (UTC)

You are invited to join Stanford's WikiProject!
ralphamale (talk) 22:05, 24 January 2012 (UTC)

Your account will be renamed
Hello,

The developer team at Wikimedia is making some changes to how accounts work, as part of our on-going efforts to provide new and better tools for our users like cross-wiki notifications. These changes will mean you have the same account name everywhere. This will let us give you new features that will help you edit and discuss better, and allow more flexible user permissions for tools. One of the side-effects of this is that user accounts will now have to be unique across all 900 Wikimedia wikis. See the announcement for more information.

Unfortunately, your account clashes with another account also called Richard Smith. To make sure that both of you can use all Wikimedia projects in future, we have reserved the name Richard Smith~enwiki that only you will have. If you like it, you don't have to do anything. If you do not like it, you can pick out a different name. If you think you might own all of the accounts with this name and this message is in error, please visit Special:MergeAccount to check and attach all of your accounts to prevent them from being renamed.

Your account will still work as before, and you will be credited for all your edits made so far, but you will have to use the new account name when you log in.

Sorry for the inconvenience.

Yours, Keegan Peterzell Community Liaison, Wikimedia Foundation 02:23, 20 March 2015 (UTC)

Renamed
 This account has been renamed as part of single-user login finalisation. If you own this account you can |log in using your previous username and password for more information. If you do not like this account's new name, you can choose your own using this form after logging in: . -- Keegan (WMF) (talk) 18:06, 22 April 2015 (UTC)

title: User talk:Richard Smith~enwiki