“Doomsday” was in the news last week. It’s an Old English word, dating to the 900s, at least. Doomsday originally denoted Judgment Day, the decisive event at the end of the world when the Almighty separates the sheep from the goats and commends them to their respective fates.

Modern usage expands the word’s scope; we use it to describe any world-ending, cataclysmic disaster. A nuclear war, for example.

I thought of Doomsday recently while watching the Netflix film “A House of Dynamite.” Somebody — it’s not clear who, but suspicions are directed at North Korea — launches an intercontinental ballistic missile toward Chicago. The president of the United States has 18 minutes to figure out how to respond.

The film conjures an era—the late 50s and early 60s — when nuclear Armageddon was more

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