Today In History- July 16

In preparation for a possible nuclear attack on Japan, on July 16, 1945, the U.S. successfully detonated an atomic bomb.  The testing, done near Alamogordo, New Mexico, saw the explosion of a plutonium-based nuclear device, and was the first successful atomic detonation in the Atomic age.  The bomb would be first used for military purposes in the Hiroshima bombing in Japan in August 1945.  The period following the explosion of the Alamogordo device is commonly referred to as the Atomic age, with the hydrogen bombing of Japan among the most disastrous effects.

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Luis W. Alvarez's eyewitness account.