On this day…

On this day in 1952, the United States detonated the world’s first thermonuclear weapon on Eniwetok atoll in the Pacific Ocean. More commonly known as the hydrogen bomb, this new weapon was approximately 1,000 times more powerful than conventional nuclear devices. Testing the weapon gave the United States a short-lived advantage in its nuclear arms race with the Soviet Union, which had successfully detonated an atomic device in September of 1949. The H-bomb completely vaporized the island of Elugelab in the Eniwetok Atoll. (Source: The Worst-Case Scenario Daily Survival Calendar 2005, published by Chronicle Books.)