The MIKE Test
In 1951, a test at Eniwetok Atoll in the South Pacific, demonstrated the release of energy from nuclear fusion. Weighing 65 tons, the apparatus was an experimental device, not a weapon, that had been constructed on the basis of the principles developed by Edward Teller and Stanislaw Ulam.
On November 1, 1952, a 10.4 megaton thermonuclear explosion code-named MIKE, ushered in the thermonuclear age. The island of Elugelab in the Eniwetok Atoll, was completely vaporized.
