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
Trinity: A Graphic History of the First Atomic Bomb mentions history of warfare weapons, up to the new atomic bomb. Eventually, Truman authorizes the bombing of Hiroshima. The crew from Enola Gay is seen on their way to the skies over Hiroshima, and then drop the bomb. The book describes in detail what happens: "The effect was like this: The heat and the light hit before the sound. Now, in a world without sight or sound, a wave of air traveling at more than 800 miles per hour sweeps outwards in all directions. In its wake comes the earth-trembling roar of the atmosphere aflame. The blast is so hot