This Day In History

20 May: First US Airborne Hydrogen Bomb Dropped Over Bikini Atoll

Don’t worry, we’re not going to get all scientific on you, mostly for three reason:

1, Our brains can’t handle it;
2, If we told you how bombs worked we’d have to kill you;
3, We can’t remember the third one.

If you’re still reading at this point, an introduction video to nuclear weapons (joy of joys!) will be included at the end… along with a video of the very first airborne h-bomb detonation in question, because we love explosions as much as the next man!

The hydrogen bomb, otherwise known as the Teller-Ulam design, first started as an idea from the mind of Enrico Fermi who proposed it to his colleague Edward Teller in 1941. Stanislaw Ulam, a coworker of Teller's, made the first key conceptual leaps towards a workable fusion design. 10 years later, that design was tested on a very small scale, showing people that the concept could almost certainly work on a much larger one.

So that’s exactly what they did, first by testing it underground, then by dropping it out of a B52 bomber onto the Bikini Atoll. Fear not, the population from the islands were moved elsewhere first, and the islands are now safe to re-inhabit! Just don’t eat too much of the fruit or you’ll be getting a tad more than your five a day…

Essentially, the Americans got there first, with the Brits not even getting started until 1954. Too busy with the tea and crumpets, what what?

Detailed knowledge of actual fission and fusion weapons is classified to some degree in virtually every industrialized nation. In the United States, such "knowledge" can by default be classified as Restricted Data, even if it is created by persons who are not government employees or associated with weapons programs, in a legal doctrine known as "born secret".

So even if we didn’t kill you, someone else would certainly have to! Don’t say we didn’t warn you…