Nuclear weapons tests in Australia known at the time as Christmas Island (not to be confused with Christmas Island in the Indian Ocean) between 1957 and 1958. These were airbursts mostly occurring over water or suspended a few hundred metres above the ground by balloon. In Australia there were three sites. Testing was carried out between 1952 and 1957 and was mostly done at the surface. A few hundred smaller scale tests were conducted at both Emu Field and Maralinga between 1953 and 1963. Two separate atomic test projects occurred at the islands, the first being Operation Hurricane and the second being Operation Mosaic The
British hydrogen bomb programme in 1949. The successful test of an atomic bomb represented an extraordinary scientific and technological achievement. Britain became the world's third nuclear power, reaffirming its status as a great power, but hopes that the United States would be sufficiently impressed to restore the Special Relationship were soon dashed. On 1 November 1952, the United States conducted Ivy Mike, the first successful test of a true thermonuclear device (also known as a hydrogen bomb). Due to its physical size and use of cryogenic liquid deuterium, it was not suitable for use as a deliverable weapon, but the Castle Bravo test on