A warning, this episode contains a graphic description of the effects of the dropping of a nuclear

weapon on people in Hiroshima and Nagasaki, Japan during World War II.

On March 16, 1979, a new movie debuted in theaters across the country.

The China Syndrome.

It's about people, people who lie, and people faced with the agony.

Of telling the truth.

The phrase China Syndrome describes a totally impossible yet terrifying Doomsday scenario,

where a reactor at a nuclear power plant melts down, and with nothing to stop it burns through the earth all the way from the US to China.

Okay, back to the movie.

So the China Syndrome portrays a serious nuclear accident at a reactor in Ventana, California.

Which nearly leads to a meltdown at the plant.

And then the efforts of investigative journalists to uncover what actually happened.

Who's this Mr. Gibson, if there's nothing to hide, let him speak.

Going kind of up again.

The owners of the reactor who are portrayed as villainous and as willing to cover up the accident, sort of in order to protect their own bottom line.

We know that accident is the right word.

The right word.

The owners of the nuclear power plant refuse to acknowledge any wrongdoing.

Claiming the plant poses no danger.

But the reporters are there to slowly unravel their lies.

And at one point in the movie, a physics professor tells a reporter that in fact an explosion at the plant could render an area the size of Pennsylvania, permanently uninhabitable.

The China Syndrome was a hit.

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