Italian illustrator Franco Picchioni conceived a balletic cover pose for John J. Everett’s Assi allo sbaraglio. If we tried this position everything we have would split down the middle, up to and including our pride. The title of the book translates to “aces in disarray,” so we’d be suffering from asses in disarray. But speaking of stretched to the limit, let’s stop with this strain of thought before it wears out completely. John J. Everett was a pseudonym, of course, but we don’t know for whom, and his novel is part of Edizioni MA-GA’s Il Cerchio Rosso collection, though we can’t pinpoint the year. Nothing is working for us today, but we’ll bend over backwards trying to find more info.
1961—Plane Carrying Nuclear Bombs Crashes
A B-52 Stratofortress carrying two H-bombs experiences trouble during a refueling operation, and in the midst of an emergency descent breaks up in mid-air over Goldsboro, North Carolina. Five of the six arming devices on one of the bombs somehow activate before it lands via parachute in a wooded region where it is later recovered. The other bomb does not deploy its chute and crashes into muddy ground at 700 mph, disintegrating while driving its radioactive core fifty feet into the earth.