The Clock has been adjusted 24 times since its inception in 1947, the largest-ever number of minutes to midnight being 17 (in 1991), and the smallest being 100 seconds (1 minute and 40 seconds) in January 2020.
1949: The clock moved 3 minutes to midnight as the Soviet Union tested its first nuclear device.
1953: Two minutes to midnight, when the U.S. created the hydrogen bomb.
1963: The clock moved 12 minutes to midnight to midnight when the U.S. and the Soviet Union signed the Partial Test Ban Treaty, limiting atmospheric nuclear testing.
1991: 17 minutes to midnight, when the U.S. and Soviet Union signed the first Strategic Arms Reduction Treaty (START I), ending the Cold War between the two countries.
2015: Three minutes to midnight, due to continued lack of global political action to address global climate change, the modernisation of nuclear weapons in the United States and Russia, and the problem of nuclear waste.
2017: Two and a half minutes to midnight as the international community failed to come to grips with humanity’s most pressing existential threats, nuclear weapons and climate change, over the course of 2016.
2018: The clock was set to two minutes to midnight and it remained that way for 2019 as the threat of North Korea’s nuclear weapons and climate change had the world as its toes.
Picture Credit : Google
