Dozens of nuclear tests were carried out by the US in the Pacific between 1946 and 1958. The largest of these was the detonation of the Castle Bravo device on March 1, 1954. It was 1,000 times more ...

Palm trees on Bikini Atoll about to be vaporised by Castle Bravo blast. (YouTube). Row of palm trees incinerated by 15,000 kiloton Castle Bravo test. (YouTube). Kim Jong-un is believed to want to be ...

Key Point: From the moment the device detonated, many of the observers knew something had gone spectacularly wrong. More than 60 years ago on an island in the South Pacific, scientists and military ...

Sixty years ago, in the predawn hours of March 1, 1954, a Japanese tuna boat named Daigo Fukuryu Maru (“Lucky Dragon no. 5”) was fishing near the Marshall Islands in the central Pacific. Its engine ...

The Operation Castle group of tests sought to validate dropping new, high-yield thermonuclear weapons from the air. However, the technology involved in making the bombs was complex and unproven, so ...

One of my favorite e-mail correspondents is the National Security Archive at The George Washington University in D.C. These guys specialize in bringing to light the hidden archaeology of the Cold War.

No other nuclear explosion did more to highlight the grim realities of a long era of nuclear testing than Castle Bravo. This month marks the sixtieth anniversary of one of the most devastating nuclear ...

Welcome to Daily TWiP, your daily dose of all the holidays and history we couldn’t cram into The Week in Preview. Some lessons, such as which isotopes of lithium are radioactive, are unfortunately ...