Tomorrow is the 70th anniversary of the Hiroshima bombing, which killed 70,000. Geoffrey Roberts looks at how and why we ushered in the age of the megaton bomb.

Society’s obsession with celebrity has never been more intense. But what is central to any understanding of celebrity is the crucial and formative role of the media, says TP O’Mahony

Ray Ryan explores the links between a Canadian astronaut, former US president John F Kennedy, and a boy who grew up to tell tales of Cork City’s northside.

Your spoiler free guide to tonight's TV.

The carnage that followed the doomed Warsaw Uprising of 1944 raises the question what was it all for — and who was responsible for its failure, writes Geoffrey Roberts.

The mystery of the golden Amber Room continues to shine, says Kya deLongchamps

To counteract a weaponised virus, researchers must first know how to create a weaponised virus, and devise a system that infects many hosts.

THIS time it’s not the White House that’s embroiled in a sexual scandal, it’s the Elysée Palace. Location apart, there’s nothing to beat a full-dress political scandal except, that is, a full-undress one.

There are some who call the ’70s the decade that taste forgot, all too conveniently overlooking the fact that it gave us David Bowie in his prime, Horslips in their pomp and, from glam rock to punk rock, a feast of plenty to bookend the decade on Top Of The Pops.

Monday marks the 50th anniversary of the Cuban missile crisis. Ryle Dwyer examines a tense fortnight when the world was on the brink of nuclear war

Stag parties on Saturn, vacations on Venus — once Neil Armstrong took that one small step back in 1969 the world awaited giant leaps in space tourism. And it’s finally coming.

The United States of America deliberately helped Russia cover up one of its most infamous Second World War atrocities to gain favour with Stalin, new documents suggest.

General Zhukov is seen by many as a hero who defeated Hitler and by others as an egotistical brute. Either way he lives on in public consciousness in Russia today, writes Geoffrey Roberts

It was about midway through Wednesday night’s first Group B game between Portugal and Denmark when we fell into conversation with a German journalist by the name of Matthias outside the media centre at Gdansk Arena.

SATURDAY

Afghanistan’s Ministry of Mines will sign the country’s first oil contract with China’s state-owned National Petroleum Corporation.

The Soviet Army endured terrible suffering — losing eight million soldiers — in its defeat of Nazi Germany, writes Geoffrey Roberts.

Afgantsy: The Russians in Afghanistan 1979-1989

THYROID cancer for sure.

THE British Foreign Office found the Soviets reluctant to help trace the source of IRA rocket launchers with Russian markings.

A 79-YEAR-OLD Japanese man who went missing at the end of World War II and resurfaced nearly six decades later in Russia went back to his homeland to be reunited with relatives.

An Italian parliamentary commission has concluded that the Soviet Union was behind the 1981 attempt to kill Pope John Paul II, a theory long alleged, but never proved.

Nazi Germany tested a crude nuclear device, killing hundreds of people in a massive explosion south of Berlin in the dying days of the Second World War, a researcher claims in a new book.

RONALD REAGAN stunned the Soviet Union with his tough rhetoric, calling it an “evil empire” whose leaders gave themselves the “right to commit any crime”.

The US covertly transferred technology to the Soviet Union that contained hidden faults, including software that triggered one of the biggest non-nuclear explosions ever seen, a senior official in the Reagan White House has revealed.

THE historic town of Most into which Olga Vagasiova was born 29 years ago has completely disappeared.

A BUS carrying people home from a picnic hit a land mine in central Afghanistan, killing 13 passengers and injuring six others, a UN official said yesterday.

Traces of nerve agents and mustard gas have been found in three locations at a US base in Uzbekistan, including a hangar where a headquarters had been set up.

Preparations are underway to send the world's second space tourist into orbit.

Twelve years after Soviet fighters were forced to withdraw in humiliation, armed Russian troops are back in Afghanistan, raising curiosity and some anxiety in the capital over the possible role of international peacekeepers.

Kazakhstan is forming a special government commission to deal with a massive anthrax dump.

The first US/British strikes in Afghanistan were focused on military targets such as airfields and command centres.