Wednesday, 8 October 2025

Five Minute History with Trisha T. Pritikin: The Hanford Scandal

 

Five Minute History with Trisha T. Pritikin 

The Hanford Scandal


Then Came the Summer Snow is a fictional tale set in 1958, in the ‘Atomic City’ of Richland, Washington, downwind of the Hanford atomic weapons production site. The story is based on true historical events. 

I was born and raised in Richland. Like many others who grew up during Hanford’s decades of plutonium production, I was exposed to a wide range of airborne and river-borne radionuclides secretly released from the Hanford site. Many of us who were exposed to Hanford’s fallout as infants and children now have radiation-related cancers and other radiogenic diseases.

Hanford began to release radioactive byproducts of plutonium production to the air and water beginning in November 1944, with start-up of the site and continuing during the decades of the subsequent Cold War. Plutonium produced at Hanford was used in the world’s first test of an atomic bomb, the Trinity Test, detonated July 16, 1945, and in the plutonium bomb (Fat Man) that decimated Nagasaki August 9, 1945. 

Airborne fallout from Hanford blanketed a wide area of the Inland Pacific Northwest, and entered British Columbia. Hanford operators dumped liquid and solid radioactive byproducts into the Columbia River. Children were particularly susceptible to the effects of radiation exposure.

A wide range of radionuclides were released from Hanford. With regard to I-131, a radionuclide prevalent in Hanford’s airborne radiation, the Atomic Energy Commission and Hanford operators were aware that potassium iodide pills and iodized table salt could block the thyroid from absorbing radioactive iodine. Yet, they did nothing to protect communities downwind, concerned that letting the public know the air and water was full of radiation would “cause undue alarm.”

Then Came the Summer Snow is an exploration of what might have happened had a mother in Richland inadvertently discovered that the milk in her young son’s glass was radioactive. This is a true atomic age hero’s journey.

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To find out more about Trisha's new book, scroll down.



Publication Date: September 15th, 2025
Publisher: Moonshine Cove Press
Pages: 328
Genre: Historical Fiction / Dark Humour

In 1958, Edith Higgenbothum, a housewife in Richland, Washington, downwind of the massive Hanford nuclear weapons production site, discovers that the milk her young son Herbie drinks contains radioactive iodine from Hanford's secret fallout releases. Radioactive iodine can damage the thyroid, especially in children.


When Herbie is diagnosed with aggressive thyroid cancer, Edith allies with mothers of children with thyroid cancer and leukemia in communities blanketed by fallout from Nevada Test Site A-bomb tests on a true atomic age hero's journey to save the children.


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This title is available to read on #KindleUnlimited


Trisha T. Pritikin


Trisha Pritikin is an internationally known advocate for fallout-exposed populations downwind of nuclear weapons production and testing sites. She is an attorney and former occupational therapist.

Trisha was born and raised in Richland, the government-owned atomic town closest to the Hanford nuclear weapons production facility in southeastern Washington State. Hanford manufactured the plutonium used in the Trinity Test, the world’s first test of an atomic bomb, detonated July 16,1945 at Alamogordo, NM, and for Fat Man, the plutonium bomb that decimated Nagasaki on August 9, 1945.

Beginning in late 1944, and for more than forty years thereafter, Hanford operators secretly released millions of curies of radioactive byproducts into the air and to the waters of the Columbia River, exposing civilians downwind and downriver. Hanford’s airborne radiation spread across eastern Washington, northern Oregon, Idaho, Western Montana, and entered British Columbia.

Trisha suffers from significant thyroid damage, hypoparathyroidism, and other disabling health issues caused by exposure to Hanford’s fallout in utero and during childhood. Infants and children are especially susceptible to the damaging effects of radiation exposure.

Trisha’s first book, The Hanford Plaintiffs: Voices from the Fight for Atomic Justice,  published in 2020 by the University Press of Kansas, has won multiple awards, including San Francisco Book Festival, 1st place (history); Nautilus Silver award (journalism and investigative reporting); American Book Fest Book Awards Finalist (US History); Eric Hoffer Awards, Shortlist Grand Prize Finalist; and Chanticleer International Book Awards, 1st Place, (longform journalism). The Hanford Plaintiffs was released in Japanese in 2023 by Akashi Shoten Publishing House, Tokyo.

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Five Minute History with Ken Tentarelli


Five Minute History with Ken Tentarelli


My latest book, The Blackest Time, takes place during the most horrific time in our history, the time of the Black Plague. The book is set in Florence, Italy, one of the largest cities in Europe, which lost 60% of its population during the plague. What is almost unbelievable is that the plague decimated the population in only six months. 


Prophets believed God arranged the formations of planets and stars to foretell future events on Earth. Three years before the plague struck, prophets observed three bright lights close together in the night sky. They took the triple conjunction of planets, Jupiter, Saturn and Mars, as an ominous sign. They didn’t know what was coming, but they expected something terrible.  


Their prophecy unfolded when the plague arrived in Florence in March 1348. Everyone who contracted the deadly disease succumbed within a week. Its cause was a mystery, but whispers of fear and rumors spread like a wildfire, fueling countless theories. The most common belief was that the plague spread through bad air. Apothecary shops where perfumes were sold did a thriving business with customers who wanted the most pungent fragrances available. Perfume made from iris flowers was popular in Florence because the iris symbolized the city, but iris perfume didn’t have the strongest scent. One of the strongest scents available at that time was made from gardenia flowers, so gardenia perfume became the most requested my men and women hoping to dispel the poisonous air. The perfumes kept people from smelling bad, which was beneficial because they didn’t bathe very often, but it did nothing to combat the plague.


Doctors were baffled by cases where the plague infected all members of a family except one. They concluded it had to be the balance of bodily fluids that protected the survivors. For two millennia, since the time of Hippocrates, physicians had practiced balancing blood, phlegm, black bile, and yellow bile to treat patients, but they soon found their customary treatments were ineffective against the plague. Despite their failures, selfless doctors worked tirelessly, exposing themselves to the disease as they tried different techniques in vain to treat the afflicted and members of their families.

People did their best to care for sick friends and relatives. To avoid contaminating themselves, they left parcels of food on their sick neighbors’ doorsteps. Though terrified of the plague, families showed incredible compassion, opening their homes to children orphaned by the plague.

Accepting the possibility that the plague was spread by bad air, city officials in Florence passed regulations to improve sanitation. They had streets washed every night; required butchers to dispose of spoiled meat promptly, and banned highly perishable fruit from being imported to the city. Those measures are credited with ending the plague, not because they purified the air, but because they eliminated the food supply of the disease-carrying rodents, thereby decreasing the rodent population.

While the plague is the backdrop of The Blackest Time, the novel’s focus is on the compassion, love, courage, and resilience of the people who coped with the tragedy. I hope readers will look beyond the plague itself and appreciate the strengths and caring of the people who supported each other during the time of the plague and see The Blackest Time as an uplifting story. 



Publication Date: September 25th, 2025
Publisher: Black Rose Writing
Pages: 268
Genre: Historical Fiction


Set in the 1300s during the devastating black plague, The Blackest Time is a powerful tale of compassion, love, and the human spirit’s ability to endure immense adversity.


Gino, the central character, is a young man who leaves his family’s farm to find work in a pharmacy in Florence. His experiences show us how people coped in the most horrific time in history.


Shortly after Gino arrived in the city, two years of incessant rain destroyed crops in the countryside, leading to famine and despair in the city. Gino offers hope and help to the suffering— he secures shelter for a woman forced to leave her flooded farm, rescues a young girl orphaned by the plague, and aids others who have lost everything.


The rains had barely ended when the plague hit the city, exposing the true character of its people. While some blamed others for the devastation, the story focuses on the compassionate acts of neighbors helping each other overcome fear and suffering. Doctors bravely risk infection to care for their patients. A woman healer, wrongly accused of witchcraft and driven from the city, finds a new beginning in a village where her skills were appreciated.


Despite the hardships, love blossoms between Gino and a young woman he met at the apothecary. Together they survive, finding strength in each other and hope in a world teetering on the edge. 


The Blackest Time is a testament to the strength of the human spirit in overcoming unimaginable tragedy.


Praise for The Blackest Time:


The complexities and the helplessness of the plague is captured exquisitely in The Blackest Time.
~ The Independent Book Review


Tentarelli’s ability to immerse readers in medieval Florence’s sights, sounds, and struggles makes this a novel worth diving into.
~ The Literary Titan


The historically rigorous description of the apothecary profession, including the guild that regulates it, is impressively presented by the author, whose research is impeccable.

~ Kirkus Reviews


This is truly an uplifting and edifying narrative of the inherent ability of mankind to rise above all the worst trials and tribulations. I enjoyed this story immensely and highly recommend it.

~ Readers Favorite 5 star review



Buy Link:

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Ken Tentarelli


Ken Tentarelli is a frequent visitor to Italy. In travels from the Alps to the southern coast of Sicily, he developed a love for its history and its people. 

He has studied Italian culture and language in Rome and Perugia, background he used in his award-winning series of historical thrillers set in the Italian Renaissance. He has taught courses in Italian history spanning time from the Etruscans to the Renaissance, and he's a strong advocate of libraries and has served as a trustee of his local library and officer of the library foundation.

When not traveling, Ken and his wife live in beautiful New Hampshire.

Author Links:

Website • Facebook • BookBub • Instagram


Five Minute History with Trisha T. Pritikin: The Hanford Scandal

  Five Minute History with  Trisha T. Pritikin   The  Hanford Scandal Then Came the Summer Snow is a fictional tale set in 1958, in the ‘At...