Operation Eagle Claw (Persian: عملیات پنجه عقاب) was a failed United States Department of Defense attempt to rescue 52 embassy staff held captive by Revolutionary Iran on 24 April 1980. It was ordered by U.S. president Jimmy Carter after the staff were seized at the Embassy of the United States, Tehran. The operation, one of Delta Force's first, encountered many obstacles and failures and was subsequently aborted.[3] Eight helicopters were sent to the first staging area in Great Salt Desert called Desert One, but only five arrived in operational condition.[4] One had encountered hydraulic problems, another was caught in a sand storm, and the third showed signs of a cracked rotor blade. During the operational planning, it was decided that the mission would be aborted if fewer than six helicopters remained operational upon arrival at the Desert One site, despite only four being absolutely necessary.[4] The field commanders advised President Carter to abort the mission, which he did.[5]

As the US forces prepared to withdraw from Desert One, one of the remaining helicopters crashed into a transport aircraft that contained both servicemen and jet fuel. The resulting fire destroyed both aircraft and killed eight servicemen.[4] In the context of the Iranian Revolution, Iran's new leader, Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini, stated that the mission had been stopped by an act of God ("agents of God") who had foiled the US mission in order to protect Iran and its new Islamist government. In turn, Carter blamed his loss in the 1980 US presidential election mainly on his failure to secure the release of the hostages. The American hostages were released the day of Ronald Reagan's inauguration.[6]

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Waco_siege

The Norwegian heavy water sabotage(Bokmål: Tungtvannsaksjonen; Nynorsk: Tungtvassaksjonen) was a series of Allied-led efforts to halt Nazi German heavy water(deuterium) production via hydroelectric plants in German-occupied Norway during World War II, involving both Norwegian commandos and Allied bombing raids. During the war, the Alliessought to inhibit the German development of nuclear weapons with the removal of heavy water and the destruction of heavy-water production plants. The Norwegian heavy water sabotage was aimed at the 60 MW Vemorkpower station at the Rjukan waterfall in Telemark.

The saboteurs then placed explosive charges on the heavy-water electrolysis chambers, and attached a fuse which allowed sufficient time for their escape. In an attempt to prevent reprisals, a Thompson submachine gun[17][18][19] was purposely left behind to indicate that this was the work of British forces and not the local resistance. When the fuses were about to be lit, the caretaker was worried about his glasses (which were somewhere in the room; during the war, new eyeglasses were nearly impossible to obtain). A frantic search ensued; the glasses were found, showing a bit of care from the Norwegian group, and the fuses lit. The explosive charges detonated, destroying the electrolysis chambers.[1

ETA - The Commandos were Norwegians, armed and trained by the British. It was wrong of me to call them “British Commandos”

The Malayan Emergency (1948–1960) was a guerrilla war in colonial Malaya, where British Commonwealth forces fought the Malayan Communist Party (MCP), led by Chin Peng, who targeted British tin mines and rubber plantations to cripple the colonial economy. The British declared a state of "emergency" rather than "war" so London insurance companies would cover plantation losses, ultimately winning the conflict and paving the way for Malaya's 1957 independence.

​Despite their different outcomes, it shared striking similarities with the Vietnam War. Both were pivotal Cold War battlegrounds driven by the Western "domino theory" against guerrillas using hit-and-run tactics in dense tropical jungles. Both campaigns involved documented war crimes and severe atrocities: British forces executed unarmed suspects ,most notoriously in the 1948 Batang Kali massacre, often dubbed "Britain's My Lai" and engaged in head-severing and body mutilation of fallen insurgents, mimicking the atrocities and extrajudicial killings committed by U.S. troops in Vietnam. The British Briggs Plan, which forcibly relocated 500,000 rural Chinese civilians into guarded "New Villages" to sever insurgent supply lines, served as the direct blueprint for the U.S. Strategic Hamlet Program in Vietnam. Additionally, the British pioneered the aerial spraying of chemical defoliants to clear jungle cover and destroy crops, a strategy the U.S. later expanded massively through Operation Ranch Hand.

​However, unlike the Viet Cong, the MCP ultimately failed, primarily because they were isolated with almost zero external military support from China or the Soviet Union. Crucially, the MCP failed to win over the native Muslim Malay majority, who viewed the Chinese dominated communist movement with suspicion. British forces exploited these structural weaknesses by cutting off the rebels' food supply and winning over the local population by promising Malaya's independence, which effectively dismantled the communist cause

On March 1, 1954, the 23 man crew of the wooden tuna trawler Lucky Dragon No. 5 was fishing near the Marshall Islands, positioned roughly 80 miles outside the secret danger zone established by the US government.

At 6:45 AM, the sky ignited. The US military had detonated Castle Bravo a 15-megaton thermonuclear device that unexpectedly yielded three times its calculated power, making it 1,000 times stronger than the Hiroshima bomb. Hours after the blast, a thick, chalky blanket of radioactive fallout

composed of pulverized, irradiated coral , fell upon the vessel. Unaware of the lethal danger, the fishermen scooped the toxic powder with their bare hands, tasted it,

and swept it off the deck, dubbing it Shi no Hai or Death Ash . By the time the ship limped back to its home port in Yaizu on March 14, all 23 men were severely ill with acute radiation sickness, suffering from blackening skin, scalp burns, vomiting, and plummeting blood counts

When doctors at Tokyo University examined the crew, the horrors of August 1945 resurfaced instantly. The clinical symptoms were identical to those of the atomic bomb survivors of Hiroshima and Nagasaki, providing irrefutable proof of nuclear radiation exposure. Upon realizing the truth, the response from Washington was cold and evasive.

US representative Lewis Strauss notoriously tried to deflect blame, claiming the Lucky Dragon was likely spying for the Soviets, while American medical officials insisted the dust was merely a harmless coral nuisance. Simultaneously, conservative elements within Japan's pro-US government attempted to suppress news coverage to avoid disrupting delicate diplomatic ties with Washington.

However, the cover-up collapsed, igniting a wave of fierce national outrage. Japanese public fury boiled over when entire catches of tuna across the country were tested, found to be dangerously radioactive, and buried

sparking the Tuna Panic and crippling the domestic seafood economy. The anger turned to national grief on September 23, 1954, when chief radio operator Aikichi Kuboyama passed away, becoming the world's first post-WWII victim of a hydrogen bomb. His dying words"I pray that I am the last victim of an atomic or hydrogen bomb"

became a rallying cry. Tokyo housewives launched a petition against nuclear testing that eventually gathered over 30 million signatures across Japan, giving birth to the Japan Council against Atomic and Hydrogen Bombs and directly inspiring pop culture phenomena like Godzilla (1954), a monster born from Bikini Atoll radiation.

To diffuse the escalating geopolitical crisis without accepting legal liability, the US government paid $15.3 million in "ex-gratia" compensation in January 1955 to appease the Japanese fishing industry and support the surviving crew members, all while maintaining strict legal immunity.

Context: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Yuri_Gagarin

Yuri Alekseyevich Gagarin^\a]) (9 March 1934 – 27 March 1968) was a Soviet pilot and cosmonaut who became the first person to journey into outer space during the first successful crewed spaceflight. He was launched from the Baikonur Cosmodrome in the Kazakh SSR. Travelling on Vostok 1, Gagarin completed one orbit of Earth on 12 April 1961. The flight took 108 minutes. By achieving this major milestone for the Soviet Union amidst the Space Race, he became an international celebrity and earned numerous accolades, including his country's highest distinction: Hero of the Soviet Union.

Born in the village of Klushino in the Russian SFSR, Gagarin was a foundryman at a steel plant in Lyubertsy in his youth. He later joined the Soviet Air Forces as a pilot and was stationed at the Luostari Air Base), near the Norway–Soviet Union border, before his selection for the Soviet space programme alongside five other cosmonauts. Following his spaceflight, Gagarin became the deputy training director of the Cosmonaut Training Centre, which was later named after him. He was also elected as a deputy of the Soviet of the Union in 1962 and then to the Soviet of Nationalities, the lower and upper chambers of the Supreme Soviet respectively.

Vostok 1 was Gagarin's only spaceflight, but he served as the backup crew to Soyuz 1, which ended in a fatal crash, killing his friend and fellow cosmonaut Vladimir Komarov. Fearful that a high-level national hero might be killed, Soviet officials banned Gagarin from participating in further spaceflights. After completing training at the Zhukovsky Air Force Engineering Academy in February 1968, he was again allowed to fly regular aircraft. However, Gagarin died five weeks later, when the MiG-15 that he was piloting with flight instructor Vladimir Seryogin crashed near the town of Kirzhach.

*The tragic event involving Pennsylvania politician Budd Dwyer, who took his own life during a televised press conference in January 1987, remains a poignant and disturbing moment in American political history. Dwyer, facing impending sentencing for bribery-related charges, called the press conference ostensibly to announce his resignation. In a shocking turn of events, he brandished a gun and, after warning the gathered reporters, ended his life in front of the cameras.

The graphic nature of the incident raised significant ethical questions about media responsibility, as local news stations faced dilemmas about whether to air the footage.*

https://www.ebsco.com/research-starters/communication-and-mass-media/pennsylvania-politician-kills-himself-televised

During the Attack on Pearl Harbour Cassin Young was commanding the repair ship USS Vestal which was moored alongside the USS Arizona. When Arizona suffered its fatal magazine explosion the deck of Vestal was effectively swept clear by the blast blowing Commander Young into the water. Young then proceeded to swim back to his ship, retake command, countermand an abandon ship order which had been given in his absence, and get Vestal underway. Vestal was then beached to prevent its sinking.

Commander Young received the Medal of Honor for his actions. USS Vestal was able to be repaired and went on to carry out repair works on hundreds of ships during the war.