World History

The Day After is an American television film that first aired on November 20, 1983 on the ABC television network. More than 100 million people, in nearly 39 million households, watched the film during its initial broadcast.[1][2][3] With a 46 rating and a 62% share of the viewing audience during the initial broadcast, the film was the seventh-highest-rated non-sports show until then, and it set a record as the highest-rated television film in history, which it held as of 2009.[3]

The film postulates a fictional war between the NATO forces and the Warsaw Pact over Germany that rapidly escalates into a full-scale nuclear exchange between the United States and the Soviet Union. The action itself focuses on the residents of Lawrence, Kansas; Kansas City, Missouri; and several family farms near American missile silos.[4]