Four-minute warning

Imagine you're playing a game with your friends and your mom says that in four minutes it's time to clean up and leave. That's kind of what the four-minute warning was all about, but on a much bigger scale.

Back in the old days, when people were worried about a war starting and bombs being dropped, they invented something called the four-minute warning. That means that if a bomb was heading towards a city, the people in charge would send out a warning to everyone telling them they only had four minutes until the bomb would land.

Just like how your mom gives you a warning before it's time to clean up and leave, the four-minute warning gave people a chance to prepare for the bomb. They could find a safe place to hide or try to leave the area before it was too late.

It was a scary thing to think about, but the four-minute warning was meant to help keep people safe if something bad ever happened. Thankfully, we haven't needed to use the four-minute warning for a very long time, but it's still important to remember what it was and why it was created.