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At 0530, 16 July 1945, in a remote section of the Alamogordo Air Base, New Mexico, the first full scale test was made of the implosion type atomic fission bomb. For the first time in history there was a nuclear explosion. And what an explosion! ... The test was successful beyond the most optimistic expectations of anyone. [150]
A nuclear explosion is an explosion that occurs as a result of the rapid release of energy from a high-speed nuclear reaction.The driving reaction may be nuclear fission or nuclear fusion or a multi-stage cascading combination of the two, though to date all fusion-based weapons have used a fission device to initiate fusion, and a pure fusion weapon remains a hypothetical device.
Building on major scientific breakthroughs made during the 1930s, the United Kingdom began the world's first nuclear weapons research project, codenamed Tube Alloys, in 1941, during World War II. The United States, in collaboration with the United Kingdom, initiated the Manhattan Project the following year to build a weapon using nuclear fission.
For nuclear weapon tests, a salvo is defined as two or more underground nuclear explosions conducted at a test site within an area delineated by a circle having a diameter of two kilometers and conducted within a total period of time of 0.1 second. [2] The two nuclear bombs dropped in combat over Japan in 1945.
The Leipzig L-IV experiment accident was the first nuclear accident in history. It occurred on 23 June 1942 in a laboratory at the Physical Institute of the Leipzig University in Leipzig, Germany. There was a steam explosion and a reactor fire in the "uranium machine", a primitive form of research reactor. [1]
1946 – June – First meeting of the United Nations Atomic Energy Commission, which was established by the first resolution of the U.N. General Assembly, is held. [20] 1946 – June – The Soviet Union rejects the Baruch Plan. 1946 – August – The Convair B-36 Peacemaker is introduced as the first purpose-built nuclear bomber.
In November, Russia completes the first test of the 9M730 Burevestnik, the first nuclear-powered cruise missile and the first nuclear-powered aircraft of any kind. [150] [151] 2018. In December, the Taishan 1 EPR begins operation in Guangdong, China. At 1660 MWe it is the largest nuclear reactor unit by electrical power ever. [152] [153] 2019
The US's first national laboratory, Los Alamos was created secretly during World War II to build the first nuclear weapon. During the 1958 moratorium on nuclear testing, a number of sub-critical tests were performed underground to learn more about the dynamics of explosions and the metallurgy of plutonium.