Welcome to the Atomic Archive. This site explores the complex history surrounding the invention of the atomic bomb - a crucial turning point for all mankind. AJ Software & Multimedia presents this site as an online companion to its latest CD-ROM, Atomic Archive: Enhanced Edition.
| 1940 |
May 3 - German troops occupy Norway, seizing the world's only heavy-water production plant at Vemork.
May 19 - Otto Frisch and Rudolf Peierls submit a memorandum to the British government estimating the critical mass of uranium 235 needed for an atomic bomb and urging a bomb research project. More>> |
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| 1954 | April 12 to May 6 - Hearings regarding Oppenheimer's loyalty cause him to lose his security clearance. More>> |
| 1957 | May 15 - First British H-bomb exploded at Christmas Island in the Pacific. More>> |
| 1972 | May 26 - President Nixon and General Secretary Brezhnev sign the Anti-Ballistic Missile (ABM) Treaty, the Strategic Arms Limitation Treaty (SALT) and the Interim Agreement on Strategic Offensive Arms, in Moscow. |
| 1974 | May 18 - India sets off a low-yield device (8 kilotons) under Rajasthan desert. More>> |
| 1976 | May 28 - President Gerald Ford and General Secretary Leonid Brezhnev sign the Underground Nuclear Explosions for Peaceful Purposes (PNE) Treaty. More>> |
| 1998 |
May 11 - India conducts three underground nuclear tests, its first in 24 years. One of the tests is a thermonuclear weapon.
May 13 - India conducts two more nuclear tests. May 28 - Pakistan conducts five nuclear tests in response to India's nuclear tests. May 30 - Pakistan conducts its sixth nuclear weapons test. The explosion is in the 1 to 5 kiloton range. More>> |
| 2002 | May 24 - Strategic Offensive Reductions Treaty is signed between the U.S. and Russia. More>> |
| 2008 | May 25 - North Korea conducts a second nuclear test. More>> |
The museum, a partnership between the Nevada Test Site Historical Foundation and the Desert Research Institute, is an affiliate of the Smithsonian Institution and is located just east of the Las Vegas strip. The goal of the museum is to preserve and foster public accessibility to the history associated with the Nevada Test Site (NTS) and the Nation's nuclear weapons testing program. To learn more, click here.
For more than forty years, the two superpowers, the United States and the Soviet Union directly threatened each other with nuclear weapons. This period of time is referred to as The Cold War. This section explores the major events of this period including; the development of the hydrogen bomb, the nuclear arms race, détente, nuclear proliferation and the nuclear world after the end of the Cold War. To learn more, click here.