What was the shortest war in history?

How long did the shortest war in history last?

Zanzibar is an island off the coast of Africa, which now belongs to the nation of Tanzania.

In 1896, Said Khalid seized power in Zanzibar and proclaimed himself a sultan. A British fleet soon arrived at the port of Zanzibar and ordered the sultan to leave the royal palace.

The sultan refused to leave. At 9:02 a.m. on August 27, British ships began firing at the palace, beginning a war between Britain and Zanzibar. The sultan's only warship sank quickly, and the palace was destroyed. At 9:40 in the morning, the sultan surrendered the palace, and the war ended.

This "war" was the shortest in history. It lasted a total of 38 minutes! The British later demanded money from the people of Zanzibar to pay for the shells that British warships had used to win the war.

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How does a soldier see in the dark?

The night sight can turn night into day for the soldier, which means that darkness no longer protects the adversary. The night sight allows to detect the movements of the enemy, exposing him to the precise shot.

Such an artifact looks like a telescopic sight: it makes it possible to see on any night that is not completely dark. A very sensitive photoelectric cell converts the image into an electrical signal, as it would in a television camera. Circuits like a high-fidelity amplifier amplify the signal. Then they turn it back into an image and project it onto a small television screen.

Even in the darkest night there is usually some light, if only from the stars. In such a situation, the soldier can aim precisely at a target 365 m away. For artillery, tanks, helicopters and airplanes, more powerful versions with a range of one kilometre are used.

If there is not even the slightest stellar light, a different instrument can be used, the infrared camera, which detects heat rather than light. Objects that generate heat - for example airplanes, missile nozzles or campfires - can be detected within a radius of several kilometres. These sights are routinely used in surveillance operations. Infrared cameras can also detect body heat.

When every soldier, tank and airplane is regularly equipped with night sights, combat will be possible 24 hours a day.

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Is a fission bomb the same as a hydrogen bomb?

The A-bomb equals an H-bomb?

Not at all. The natural process that triggered the first atomic bombs is contrary to the process used by the hydrogen bomb, or H-bomb.

In a conventional atomic bomb or A-bomb, energy is produced from uranium atoms. This releases some of the energy that held the atoms together. The process is called fission, which means 'split apart'.

In hydrogen bombs, on the other hand, there is another process called fusion. In a hydrogen bomb, the enormous amounts of heat cause hydrogen atoms to join together, forming helium atoms. When hydrogen atoms melt, some of their mass is changed into energy. This is the energy released by the H-bomb.

The only way scientists have found to create the necessary heat required by the fusion process in an H-bomb is to first detonate a fission bomb. So, an atomic fission bomb acts as the detonator of the even more powerful H-bomb.

The atomic bomb explodes first, producing enough heat to power the hydrogen bomb.

The bombs dropped in Japan during World War II were atomic fission bombs, but their power was minuscule compared to the nuclear bombs that exist today.

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How does a plane take off from an aircraft carrier?

 Despite the fact that aircraft carriers are huge military ships, which act as floating airports, their runway is not long enough for an aircraft to take off normally. Extra' help is needed.

It is thanks to steam catapults that sophisticated modern aircraft can take off from an aircraft carrier.

Once in operation, the aircraft is placed in position and connected by the stern to a strong point on the deck, by means of a retainer or wire loop that has a weak section in the centre.

A pole near the front wheel of the landing gear lowers to fit a kind of shuttle that connects the plane to the catapult with a hook mechanism.

In front of the aircraft, but below deck, there are two parallel cylinders, not less than 45 meters long, which house two pistons fixed to the shuttle. The ship's boilers provide the steam that reaches the cylinders through a pressure accumulator, which varies according to the weight of the aircraft being launched.

When the catapult is triggered, the combined force of the engines and the pressurized steam breaks the weak section and the apparatus is released, reaching about 250 km per hour in a stretch of 45 meters.

At the end of the launch the plane is released from the shuttle. The probes on the front of the pistons end up in a water container, where they are submerged at rest. The shuttle is put back into position for the next launch: aircraft carriers can catapult one aircraft every two minutes; US carriers with 4 catapults can launch one aircraft every 30 seconds.

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What was the first spy plane?

In the late 1950s, the U.S. Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) sent U2 spy planes to photograph secret locations in the former Soviet Union. The Lockheed U2 were flying at an altitude of 70,000 ft, out of the reach of whole fire and radar.

These extraordinary devices were more than reaction gliders built with plastic and triplay. After takeoff, the wheels were detached from the end of the wings. They landed with the main landing gear, integrated in their fuselage.

It wasn't until May 1960, after more than four years of flights, that the Russians shot down a U2, using modern radar equipment used in SA-2 anti-aircraft missiles. Even so, the U2 did not receive the impact directly: a projectile exploded very close and launched it in an uncontrollable dive. The pilot, Gary Powers, had to jump off the ship.

The success of U2 prompted the United States to undertake an ultra-secret investigation called Stealth, with the aim of manufacturing military devices that were undetectable to radar.

The U2 spent so much time unnoticed because it was made of non-metallic materials that absorbed radar waves, rather than reflecting them to the ground station, as is often the case.

The Stealth programme aimed to design high-performance military aircraft, made of a minimum of metal and with the exterior coated with a radar wave-absorbing layer. This would outwit most anti-aircraft systems.

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