In the west of the country, inside current-day Žemaitija National Park, the Soviets secretly constructed a nuclear missile launch base in the early 1960s with enough capacity to take out much of western Europe.  According to the museum guide, they trucked in Estonian labor for the construction so as to keep its purpose a secret from Lithuanians.  The facility probably also made Lithuania a big fat target in cold-war nuclear counterstrike planning.  Joy.

It was sobering to remember that we once had enough capacity ready and aimed at one another to kill us all 100 times over.  Now that that’s over, I guess we’ll just have to enjoy the slower-moving Armageddon that is climate change.