Nuclear weapons and the United Kingdom weapons to be a joint discovery, but the American Atomic Energy Act of 1946 (McMahon Act) restricted other countries, including the UK, from access to information about nuclear weapons. Fearing the loss of Britain's great power status, the UK resumed its own project, now codenamed High Explosive Research. On 3 October 1952, it detonated an atomic bomb in the Monte Bello Islands of Western Australia in Operation Hurricane. Eleven more British nuclear weapons tests in Australia were carried out over the following decade, including seven British nuclear tests at Maralinga in 1956 and 1957. The British hydrogen bomb programme demonstrated
Operation Tumbler–Snapper Operation Tumbler–Snapper Operation Tumbler–Snapper was a series of atomic tests conducted by the United States in early 1952 at the Nevada Test Site. The "Tumbler-Snapper" series of tests followed "Operation Buster-Jangle", and preceded "Operation Ivy". The "Tumbler" phase, sponsored by the Atomic Energy Commission consisted of three airdrops which were intended to help explain discrepancies in the actual and estimated blast shock wave damage noted on previous detonations, and to establish more accurately the optimum height of burst. The "Snapper" phase, sponsored by the Department of Defense consisted of one airdrop and four tower shots intended to test various new