Nuclear explosion debris. The first man made nuclear explosion occurred on July 16, 1945 at 5:50 am on the Trinity Test Site near Alamogordo, New Mexico in the United States, an area now known as the White Sands Missile Range. The event involved the full-scale testing of an implosion-type fission atomic bomb. In a memorandum to the U.S. Secretary of War, General Leslie Groves describes the yield as equivalent to 15,000 to 20,000 tons of TNT. Following this test, a uranium-gun type nuclear bomb (Little Boy) was dropped on the Japanese city of Hiroshima on August 6, 1945, with a blast yield
Hell Gate would last 70 years. On September 24, 1876, the Corps used of explosives to blast the dangerous rocks, which was followed by further blasting work. On October 10, 1885, the Corps carried out the largest explosion in this process, annihilating Flood Rock with of explosives. The blast was felt as far away as Princeton, New Jersey and sent a geyser of water in the air. A 2006 article described the blast as "the largest planned explosion before testing began for the atomic bomb", although the detonation at the Battle of Messines in 1917 was several times larger. Rubble from the