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
Atomic Bomb Casualty Commission research undertaken by the ABCC was the genetics study, which focused its study on the uncertainties surrounding the possible long-term effects of ionizing radiation in pregnant women and their unborn children. The study did not find evidence of widespread genetic damage. It did, however, find increased incidence of microcephaly and mental retardation in children most proximally exposed in utero to the bombs' radiation. The genetics project studied the effects of radiation on the survivors and their children. This project turned out to be the largest and most interactive of the ABCC programs. In 1957, Japan passed the Atomic Bomb Survivors