The Shippingport Atomic Power Station in Pennsylvania, the first large-scale civilian nuclear power plant in the world first fed electricity into the grid for the Pittsburgh area. Shippingport is located on the Ohio River about 25 miles from Pittsburgh. Ground was broken in 1954 by President Dwight D. Eisenhower when the Atomic Energy Act of 1954 authorized private nuclear power production in the U.S. He made the official opening dedication on 26 May 1958, a year in which the United States would detonate 77 atomic tests, but one that would also see the first tentative test ban agreement. It was taken out of service in 1982. Decommissioning was completed in 1989.

Thieves in Poland have stolen the infamous wrought iron sign that announced "work sets you free" over the main gate at Auschwitz. The sign saying "Arbeit macht frei" was erected by the Nazis soon after the old Auschwitz barracks were converted into a labour and extermination centre in 1940. It was used to suggest that hard work would allow inmates to walk free. As Auschwitz was turned into a major hub for the Holocaust and murdered over a million people the sign has come to represent a cynical commentary. 'It seems that a gang of perhaps three people unscrewed the sign between three o'clock and five o'clock on Friday morning,' said the Polish police. 'They must have used a ladder and had a car waiting for them.' ( The men who stole the sign are arrested the next day and the sign is found cut into three pieces, each containing one of the words Arbeit Macht Frei )