The most terrible weapon ever created is, of course, the nuclear bomb. During the Second World War, both the Allies and Nazi Germany were working on the development of a nuclear weapon. But the United States succeeded in detonating a bomb before Hitler.
The United States had tested the atomic bomb six times and dropped bombs on Hiroshima and Nagasaki in August 1945. Soon the Soviet Union was building its own weapons. The Soviets tested a bomb on August 29th, 1949.
This was of great concern to world leaders because of the tension that existed between the United States and its allies and the Soviet Union after the war ended. Neither country had many weapons at first. In 1946 the United States had only ten bombs. Nevertheless, each bomb could destroy a large city. Nowadays, of course, there are many more nuclear weapons, each one far more powerful than those dropped on Nagasaki and Hiroshima.
In the 1950s the United States established a testing site in the Nevada desert. In this horrifying video, you can see Marines at Camp Desert Rock observing an explosion. These soldiers are being tested to see how they cope with the terrible sound, shock waves, dust, and of course, the mushroom cloud and the after-effects of the radiation.
The United States also had a testing site called the Pacific Proving Grounds in the Marshall Islands. 67 bombs were tested there, and the people of the Marshall Islands still suffer the effects of radiation.
The United States have conducted over a thousand nuclear tests. They have also conducted many tests of the systems that deliver the weapons, such as rocket launchers, planes, warships, and submarines.