CHICAGO — The Doomsday Clock was born in 1947 in Chicago, a Cold War baby delivered as the illustration for the first cover of a new magazine, the Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists. It was set at 7 minutes to midnight, an indication of how close a team of revered scientists believed the world was to nuclear annihilation.
It was designed by landscape painter Martyl Suzanne Schweig Langsdorf (who went by Martyl professionally). Her husband, physicist Alexander Langsdorf Jr., was part of the team that developed the atomic bomb at the University of Chicago and was among the founders of the magazine.
The world has changed since and the clock along with it. First named the Atomic Cock, it became Doomsday. In more recent years, it has gone beyond bombs to be recalibrated annually due to climate change, biological dangers, artificial intelligence, the spread of disinformation and remains ever aware of new emerging issues that might threaten the planet.
