Thirty-four years ago the US high-energy physics community planned the most powerful hadron collider ever attempted, the Superconducting Super Collider (SSC), a 54-mile 20 TeV on 20 TeV proton collider costing $2-3 billion. It was proposed to the Department of Energy in 1983. The DOE conducted a nation-wide site search. Batavia, Illinois was among the finalists, but Waxahachie, Texas won the competition. Initial construction began in 1989, but by 1992 the project was in trouble. After spending nearly $3B, Congress cancelled the SSC in 1993, and Europe seized the energy frontier. In the talk I will recall the brief history of the SSC featuring highlights and low points of the project described in the author's book Tunnel Visions, the Rise and Fall of the Superconducting Super Collider, written with coauthors Lillian Hoddeson and Michael Riordan and published in 2015 by The University of Chicago Press.

Argonne Physics Division Colloquium Schedule