65th anniversary of first nuclear test

It started with a pen and paper, a letter written by Albert Einstein to President Franklin Roosevelt in 1939, explaining the urgency of work on uranium fission.

Several nations in Europe had become entrenched in the Second World War, and the United States propelled itself into work on developing a nuclear bomb.

“Tens of thousands of people worked on it,” said Robert Norris, Senior Research Associate with the Natural Resources Defense Council. “The largest corporations in America were recruited. So it’s not something that can be done in a laboratory here.”

Instead a large bomb weighing almost 10,000 lbs was assembled at a top secret facility Los Alamos, New Mexico.

“The nicknames for the two bombs that ended World War Two – one was called Little Boy and that was a uranium fueled weapon,” Norris said. “And then Fat Man.”

The Fat Man, or implosion bomb, used plutonium instead of uranium. At the center of it was an initiating device encased in a highly explosive shell that made the blast wave go inward.

At 5:30 am only July 16, 1945, the test was carried out.

“July 16 is really the beginning of a new era in our history,” Norris said.