Forbes contributors publish independent expert analyses and insights. David Bressan is a geologist who covers curiosities about Earth. Jul 16, 2025, 10:38am EDT Jul 16, 2025, 12:02pm EDT The mushroom ...
At 5:29 a.m. on July 16, 1945, the desert near Alamogordo, New Mexico, briefly became a furnace unlike any on Earth’s surface. The world’s first nuclear bomb test vaporized steel, copper, cables, ...
Los Alamos, New Mexico, became the secret hub of the Manhattan Project during World War II, leading to the creation of the ...
On August 6, 1945, the sky above the Japanese city of Hiroshima opened. A blinding flash, then a deafening sonic boom. An entire city pulverized in seconds. Thus began the nuclear age. Today, 80 years ...
Eighty years ago, on Aug. 6, 1945, the United States dropped the first of two atomic bombs on Japan to force the unconditional surrender that ended World War II. The fearsome weapons were created by ...
Many Americans—including students in the History of the Atomic Bomb course taught at the University of Texas at Austin by Bruce J. Hunt, A&S '84 (PhD)—have learned a version of this story: On Aug. 6, ...
The U.S. scientists who tested the first atomic bomb, July 16, 1945, took the ultimate gamble of setting the atmosphere on fire and destroying all life on Earth. When Robert Oppenheimer, the civilian ...
The first reports were met with disbelief. A single bomb with the explosive force to level a city; a bomb, detonated with such intensity it burned as bright as — maybe, even brighter than — the sun.