one of two nuclear bombs fell near raleigh , n.c. , on jan 24 , 1961 , at the height of the cold war .
 
this bomb had the potential to make the one used in hiroshima look like the work of a cap gun , " said eric schlosser , who obtained the documents approximately a year before they were obtained by the national security archive at george washington university . "
a disaster worse than the devastation wrought in hiroshima and nagasaki could have befallen the united states that night .
in a scenario that could ’ ve been extremely devastating , the united states narrowly averted a nuclear disaster in 1961 when an atomic bomb nearly detonated after falling out of a b-52 bomber that broke up in the sky .
luckily for north carolina , the plane ’s destruction also damaged the switch necessary to trigger detonation “ the report published by the national security archives .
from the belly of the b-52 fell two bombs -- two nuclear bombs that hit the ground near the city of goldsboro .
when the us air force aircraft went into a tailspin and broke up , the two bombs fell towards goldsboro , north carolina .
the parachute for one of the weapons failed to deploy , and the plane crash had actually pushed the bomb into “ armed ” mode by the time it hit the ground .