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The Start of Manhattan Project
In Germany, scientists in the 1930s discovered the amount of energy in an atom. Nuclear fission was found out in 1938 and Germany was going to have atomic bombs. President Roosevelt started the Manhattan project and the first atomic bomb was created. They used 235 uranium and 240 plutonium in the bomb. -
The United States Hydrogen Bomb
The beginning of the hydrogen bomb was in the 1940s. When the United States dropped atomic bombs on Japan Doctor Teller said that they should use a hydrogen bomb instead. Doctor Edward Teller and Stanislaw Ulam developed the model for the hydrogen bomb. The bomb worked perfectly and destroyed the whole island it was dropped on and parts of surrounding ones. The bomb let off a three mile wide fireball. The Ulam-Teller design is behind most of the nuclear weapons used today. -
Tsar Bomba
Tsar Bomba was a product of USSR scientists. They created this bomb to make the rest of the world tremble at the thought of the Soviet Union. The bomb knocked down every house within 34 miles. The Tsar Bomba was a 3 step hydrogen bomb, the first stage is a type of fission atomic bomb, with the second and third stages being thermonuclear. -
Smiling Buddha
India started its nuclear program in 1944. Physicist Raja Ramanna was in charge of the scientific research on nuclear weapons and was the first directing officer of a small team of scientists that supervised and carried out the tests. 75 scientists helped with the bomb from 1967-1974. 6 kilograms of Plutonium was used and weighed 1400 kilograms. -
North Korea Tests Nuclear Weapons
In October of 2006, North Korea did its first nuclear weapons test. The explosions were equal to 1000 tons of dynamite. The test was recorded as a fail because of how small the explosion was. There was some radioactivity, but not much. These tests were done underground. They set of plutonium based devices.