Megadeath is a term for one million deaths by nuclear explosion. It was coined in 1953 by RAND

RAND

RAND Corporation is a nonprofit global policy think tank first formed to offer research and analysis to the United States armed forces by Douglas Aircraft Company. It is currently financed by the U.S. government and private endowment, corporations including the healthcare industry, universities...

 military strategist Herman Kahn

Herman Kahn

Herman Kahn was one of the preeminent futurists of the latter third of the twentieth century. In the early 1970s he predicted the rise of Japan as a major world power. He was a founder of the Hudson Institute think tank and originally came to prominence as a military strategist and systems...

 and popularized in his 1960 book On Thermonuclear War

On Thermonuclear War

On Thermonuclear War is a book by Herman Kahn, a military strategist at the RAND Corporation, although it was written only a year before he left RAND to form the Hudson Institute. It is a controversial treatise on the nature and theory of war in the thermonuclear age...

. In Kahn's view, alternate scenarios in which the United States of America suffers 10 megadeaths instead of 100 should be weighed as "tragic but distinguishable outcomes." Though the term was created in order to discuss the likely consequences of conducting nuclear war

Nuclear warfare

Nuclear warfare, or atomic warfare, is a military conflict or political strategy in which nuclear weaponry is detonated on an opponent. Compared to conventional warfare, nuclear warfare can be vastly more destructive in range and extent of damage...

, such a large number of deaths could also be associated with other weapons of mass destruction

Weapons of mass destruction

A weapon of mass destruction is a weapon that can kill and bring significant harm to a large number of humans and/or cause great damage to man-made structures , natural structures , or the biosphere in general...

.

In Stanley Kubrick

Stanley Kubrick

Stanley Kubrick was an American film director, writer, producer, and photographer who lived in England during most of the last four decades of his career...

's 1964 film Dr. Strangelove or: How I Learned to Stop Worrying and Love the Bomb

Dr. Strangelove or: How I Learned to Stop Worrying and Love the Bomb

Dr. Strangelove or: How I Learned to Stop Worrying and Love the Bomb, commonly known as Dr. Strangelove, is a 1964 black comedy film which satirizes the nuclear scare. It was directed, produced, and co-written by Stanley Kubrick, starring Peter Sellers and George C. Scott, and featuring Sterling...

, General Buck Turgidson (played by George C. Scott

George C. Scott

George Campbell Scott was an American stage and film actor, director and producer. He was best known for his stage work, as well as his portrayal of General George S. Patton in the film Patton, and as General Buck Turgidson in Stanley Kubrick's Dr...

) carries a binder titled "World Targets in Megadeaths." In the film, Turgidson promotes an all-out pre-emptive strike

Pre-Emptive Strike

Pre-Emptive Strike is the first release by Five Finger Death Punch on July 10, 2007. It was only released as a digital download to the American iTunes Music Store. The live version of "The Devil's Own" was recorded at a performance in Las Vegas, Nevada....

, which he feels will result in acceptable American casualties, with the phrase "...choose between two admittedly regrettable, but nevertheless, distinguishable post-war environments: one where you've got 20 million people killed, and the other where you got 150 million people killed."

Popular culture

In 1983 by the American thrash metal

Thrash metal

Thrash metal is a subgenre of heavy metal that is characterized usually by its fast tempo and aggression. Songs of the genre typically use fast percussive and low-register guitar riffs, overlaid with shredding-style lead work...

 band Megadeth

Megadeth

Megadeth is an American heavy metal band from Los Angeles, California which was formed in 1983 by guitarist/vocalist Dave Mustaine, bassist Dave Ellefson and guitarist Greg Handevidt, following Mustaine's expulsion from Metallica. The band has since released 13 studio albums, three live albums, two...

.

A parody heavy metal

Heavy metal music

Heavy metal is a genre of rock music that developed in the late 1960s and early 1970s, largely in the Midlands of the United Kingdom and the United States...

 band called Megadeath closed the 1973 National Lampoon

National Lampoon Inc

National Lampoon, Incorporated is a company formed in 2002 in order to use the brand name "National Lampoon" in comedy and entertainment. In the words of its prospectus, the role of the company is to "develop, produce, provide creative services and distribute National Lampoon branded comedic...

 Off Broadway hit play and sound recording Lemmings, a parody of the Woodstock Festival

Woodstock Festival

Woodstock Music & Art Fair was a music festival, billed as "An Aquarian Exposition: 3 Days of Peace & Music". It was held at Max Yasgur's 600-acre dairy farm in the Catskills near the hamlet of White Lake in the town of Bethel, New York, from August 15 to August 18, 1969...

.