The Night a Nation Held Its Breath and Then Roared

On October 13, 2010, a steel rescue capsule broke through two thousand feet of Chilean rock and delivered the first of thirty-three trapped miners back to the surface. Florencio Avalos stepped out into the floodlights, and the Atacama Desert erupted. Horns blared across the camp. Families screamed and wept. A billion people watching on television joined the chorus — strangers in coffee shops in Tokyo and living rooms in Kansas found themselves cheering for men they had never met.…