What Happens In The First 72 Minutes Of Nuclear War, According To Author Annie Jacobsen

Annie Jacobsen said this on the Hasan Minhaj podcast. She is the author of “Nuclear War: A Scenario”, published in 2024, which reconstructs the sequence of events following a single nuclear launch minute by minute, built from declassified Defense Department documents and interviews with former military officials.

The physics she describes are real. The fireball core of a 1-megaton warhead reaches temperatures comparable to the interior of the sun. The thermal pulse moves at the speed of light.