Operation Mosaic The first British atomic bomb was tested in Operation Hurricane at the Monte Bello Islands in Western Australia on 3 October 1952. Britain thereby became the third nuclear power after the United States and the Soviet Union, but just four weeks after Operation Hurricane, the United States successfully demonstrated a hydrogen bomb. The technology mastered in Operation Hurricane was six years old, and with the hydrogen bomb in hand, the US Congress saw no benefit in renewing cooperation with the UK. All the while Britain strove for independence, at the same time it sought interdependence in the form of a
Agathe (atomic test) Agathe (atomic test) Agathe (aka Agate) was the name of the first French nuclear underground test. It was an atomic bomb detonated in the Hoggar mount (near In Ekker) of the then French Sahara desert on November 21, 1961, during the Algerian War (1954–62). Agathe was the first test of the jewel designation series running from 1961 until 1966. Minor and major incidents occurred during these experiments, the most important being the Beryl incident on May 1, 1962, where the nine militarymen of the "621ème Groupe d'Armes Spéciales" unit were heavily contaminated (600 mSv) as portrayed in the 2006 docudrama