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
Nagasaki Atomic Bomb Museum Greenstreet's character in "The Maltese Falcon") was dropped on Nagasaki, forever changing the city's landscape. A mushroom cloud rose to an altitude of 45,000 feet above the city. Within the museum is a history of the city before the bomb was dropped. The hypocenter of the explosion was the Urakami district, which was a traditionally rustic and isolated suburb. However, the population soared after the 1920s when the district was chosen as the site for munitions factories. An industrial zone was quickly created. Additionally, the Urakami district was home to the Nagasaki Medical College. When the bomb was dropped at