Megadeath

This article deals with the term Megadeath, do not confuse with the American thrash metal Megadeth band.

Herman Kahn.

Megadeath (in English Megadeath or megacorpse) is the term assigned for every million deaths. It was coined in 1953 by RAND military strategist Herman Kahn, and popularized in 1960 in his book On Thermonuclear War. In Kahn's view, the United States would have suffered 10 megadeaths instead of 100, and these should be regarded as "tragic, but distinguishable results." Such calculations lost all validity with the advent over the next few years of mutual assured destruction, but the unit of measurement endured.

Although the term was created in order to examine the possible consequences of carrying out a nuclear war, such a high number of deaths could also be associated with other weapons of mass destruction and in extreme cases with democide.

In the 1964 Stanley Kubrick film Dr. Strangelove or: How I Learned to Stop Worrying and Love the Bomb, General Buck Turgidson (played by George C. Scott) carries a folder titled World Targets in Megadeaths (Global targets in mega-deaths). In the film, Turgidson tries to promote a preventive war by all means.

The word megadeath was adopted -and adapted- by The Meggadeaths, a forerunner of Pink Floyd, and in 1983 by the American thrash metal band Megadeth. An alleged heavy metal band called Megadeath shut down a parody of the Woodstock festival organized by the National Lampoon in 1973.