Cold War
Soviets, Spies, and Secrets
COLD WAR
Updated: April 2025
Posted: February 2024
The Launch of the Nuclear Age
On July 16, 1945, at exactly 5:30 a.m. in the desert 210 miles south of Los Alamos, New Mexico, the first nuclear explosion in history took place.
On July 16, 1945, at exactly 5:30 a.m. in the desert 210 miles south of Los Alamos, New Mexico, the first nuclear explosion in history took place.
The world changed that day, although only a few people on that date knew it. The nuclear age was born.
- The birth of this new age was announced on August 6, 1945. On that date, a United States Air Force B-29 Superfortress bomber, piloted by Colonel Paul Tibbets and named "Enola Gay" after Tibbets' mother, dropped an atomic bomb on Hiroshima, Japan. Two-thirds of the city was destroyed. As many as 80,000 people died instantly.
A few hours later, President Truman made the official announcement:
HARRY S. TRUMAN:
Sixteen hours ago an American airplane dropped one bomb on Hiroshima... That bomb had more power than 20,000 tons of T.N.T.... It is an atomic bomb. It is a harnessing of the basic power of the universe. The force from which the sun draws its power has been loosed against those who brought war to the Far East.
- On August 9, Nagasaki was the target of a second atomic bomb. The Japanese government surrendered six days later.
More than 75 years later, those two attacks remain the only times a nuclear weapon has been used in war. Yet the threat of nuclear annihilation would haunt the planet during all the years of the Cold War, and beyond.
ROBERT OPPENHEIMER:
Now I am become Death, the destroyer of worlds.-Robert Oppenheimer
Enola Gay
- The crew of the Boeing B-29 Superfortress, the "Enola Gay," which delivered the atomic bomb dropped on Hiroshima on August 6, 1945
Hiroshima Devastation
- An aerial view of the devastation of Hiroshima, Japan, caused by the first atomic bomb ever used in warfare, August 6, 1945.
Nagasaki
- A mushroom cloud rises into the atmosphere high above Nagasaki, Japan following the detonation of an atomic bomb on August 9,1945.
Nagasaki Devastation
- Nagasaki, Japan lies devastated from an atomic bomb dropped on August 9, 1945. Somehow, a traditional Torii Gate - the entrance to a sacred Shinto shrine - survived the blast.
The Nuclear Age Begins
On July 16, 1945, in the desert in New Mexico, the first nuclear explosion in history took place.
On July 16, 1945, in the desert in New Mexico, the first nuclear explosion in history took place.