"I Am Become Death": 75th Anniversary of the First Nuclear Explosion

“Now, I am become death, the destroyer of worlds.” It is the 75th Anniversary of the detonation of the first ever nuclear bomb.

On 16 July 1945, the ‘Trinity’ nuclear test plunged humanity into the atomic age.

The bomb was detonated in New Mexico, at the Alamogordo test range.

Nicknamed the “gadget”, the device yielded 19 kilotons, creating a crater over 300 metres wide.

On 6 and 9 August 1945, nuclear bombs were dropped on the Japanese cities of Hiroshima and Nagasaki.

Tens of thousands of civilians died immediately and many more from radiation exposure later.