On March 23, 1983—33 years ago today—President Ronald Reagan made history by announcing the Strategic Defense Initiative (SDI) on live national television, shocking even some of his closest advisers. Presenting what he called “a vision of the future which offers hope,” Reagan committed the United States to a crash program for the development of missile defense technology to “free the world from the threat of nuclear war.” Reagan’s announcement was a declaration that the era of the international reign of terror known as Mutually Assured Destruction (MAD) was over.READ MORE