Pope Francis attends a circus performance during his weekly general audience at Paul VI hall on December 22, 2016 at the Vatican. (Photo by Alberto Pizzoli/AFP Photo)
U.S. Army soldiers from the 2-82 Field Artillery, 3rd Brigade, 1st Cavalry Division, wait to load onto their armored vehicles as they prepare to convoy to Kuwait from Camp Adder in Iraq on December 7, 2011 at Camp Adder, near Nasiriyah, Iraq. (Photo by Joe Raedle/Getty Images)
“A fter the former Soviet Union conducted its first nuclear test in August 1949, the US reevaluated its postwar defense policies. With the US monopoly on atomic weapons broken, military and political leaders chose to diversify the American stockpile by developing thermonuclear and tactical nuclear weapons. One of the more interesting concepts to come out of this period was atomic artillery, which was successfully tested at the Nevada Proving Grounds (now the Nevada Test Site) in May 1953”. – Alan Carr. Photo: Atomic Annie at work during the Upshot-Knothole test series, 1953. (Photo by Los Alamos National Laboratory/US Army)
Lightning strikes as smoke billows following an Israeli airstrike in Gaza City on October 9, 2023. The death toll from the unprecedented assault by Palestinian militant group Hamas on its territory rose to 900 in Israel, which has retaliated with a withering barrage of strikes on Gaza, raising the death toll there to 687. (Photo by Mohammed Abed/AFP Photo)
A model walks the runway at the Agatha Ruiz de la Prada fashion show during the Mercedes Benz Fashion Week Madrid at Ifema on September 12, 2024 in Madrid, Spain. (Photo by Juan Naharro Gimenez/Getty Images)
Early morning swimmers at Cullercoats Bay on the north east coast of England on Sunday, December 29, 2024. (Photo by Owen Humphreys/PA Images via Getty Images)
The Brocken specter or mountain spectre phenomenon, where the shadow of an observer is magnified and cast on a cloud opposite from the sun or bright light source, is observed on the Howgills, outside Sedbergh, Britain, on December 26, 2024. (Photo by Suzanne Plunkett/Reuters)