- 1900
| Oct 19 | At the Berlin Physical Society meeting German theoretical physicist Max Planck presents his quantum theory, which revolutionizes scientists' understanding of atomic and subatomic processes. | Ref: 25 |
- 1908
| Jan 15 | Edward Teller, Hungarian-born U.S. physicist known as the "Father of the H-bomb, is born in Budapest Hungary. | Ref: 2 |
- 1911
| Nov 29 | Konrad Fuchs, German atomic physicist who worked on developing the atomic bomb in the United States during World War II while giving its secrets to the Soviet Union. | Ref: 2 |
- 1912
| Apr 19 | Glenn T Seaborg head of Atomic Energy Commission, is born. | Ref: 5 |
- 1915
| Dec 16 | Albert Einstein publishes his "General Theory of Relativity". | Ref: 5 |
- 1916
| May 11 | Einstein's Theory of General Relativity presented. | Ref: 5 |
- 1919
| May 29 | Einstein's Theory of General Relativity tested and confirmed during solar eclipse by Arthur Eddington. | Ref: 5 |
- 1920
| Jun 03 | Ernest Rutherford speculates on the possible existence and properties of the neutron in his second Bakerian Lecture, London. | Ref: 91 |
- 1921
| Apr 02 | Professor Albert Einstein lectures in NYC on his new theory of relativity. | Ref: 5 |
| May 21 | Andrei Sakharov physicist: produced first Soviet atomic bomb, also hydrogen bomb; human rights activist (Nobel '75): formulated concepts of perestroika and glasnost, is born. | Ref: 4 |
- 1931
| Dec 28 | Irene Joliot-Curie reports studying penetrating particles produced by beryllium when bombarded by alpha rays. She believes the particles, which are actually neutrons, to be energetic gamma rays. | Ref: 91 |
| Dec 29 | Identification of heavy water publicly announced, HC Urey. | Ref: 5 |
- 1932
| Feb 07 | (thru the 17th) In a series of experiments James Chadwick demonstrates the existence of the neutron. | Ref: 91 |
| Sep 12 | Leo Szilard conceives the idea of using a chain reaction of neutron collisions with atomic nuclei to release energy. He also considers the possibility of using this to make bombs. This predates the discovery of fission by more than six years. | Ref: 91 |
| Dec 05 | German physicist Albert Einstein was granted a visa, making it possible for him to travel to the United States. | Ref: 5 |
- 1933
| Oct 17 | Due to rising anti-Semitism and anti-intellectualism in Hitler's Germany, Albert Einstein immigrates to the United States. He makes his new home in Princeton, N.J. | Ref: 2 |
- 1934
| May 10 | Enrico Fermi's research group publishes a report on experiments with neutron bombardment of uranium. Several radioactive products are detected. | Ref: 91 |
| Jul 04 | Leo Szilard files a patent application describing the use of neutron induced chain reactions to create explosions, and the concept of the critical mass. | Ref: 91 |
| Sep 10 | (day unspecified) Ida Noddack publishes a paper in "Zeitshrift fur Angewandte Chemie" arguing that the anomalous radioactivities produced by neutron bombardment of uranium may be due to the atom splitting into smaller pieces. | Ref: 91 |
| Oct 22 | Enrico Fermi discovers the principle of neutron moderation, and the enhanced capture of slow neutrons. | Ref: 91 |
- 1935
| Oct 08 | The British War Office rejects Szilard's offer to turn over to them his patents of nuclear energy for free, an offer made to bring them under British secrecy laws. | Ref: 91 |
- 1936
| Feb 10 | (day unspecified) The British Admiralty accepts Szilard's offer to turn over his patents. | Ref: 91 |
- 1938
| Dec 21 | Otto Hahn submits paper to "Naturwissenschaften" showing conclusive evidence of the production of radioactive barium from neutron irradiated uranium, i.e. evidence of fission. | Ref: 91 |
- 1939
| Jan 13 | Otto Frisch observes fission directly by detecting fission fragments in an ionization chamber. With the assistance of William Arnold, he coins the term "fission". | Ref: 91 |
| Jan 20 | (day unspecified) Leo Szilard hears about the discovery of fission from Eugene Wigner. He immediately realizes that the fission fragments, due to their lower atomic weights, would have excess neutrons which would have to be shed. | Ref: 91 |
| Jan 22 | Uranium atom first split, Columbia University. | Ref: 5 |
| Jan 26 | Niels Bohr publicly announces the discovery of fission at an annual theoretical physics conference at George Washington University in Washington, DC. | Ref: 91 |
| Jan 29 | Robert Oppenheimer hears about the discovery of fission, within a few minutes he realizes that excess neutrons must be emitted, and that it might be possible to build a bomb. | Ref: 91 |
| Feb 05 | Niels Bohr realizes that U-235 and U-238 must have different fission properties, that U-238 could be fissioned by fast neutrons but not slow ones, and that U-235 accounted for observed slow fission in uranium. | Ref: 91 |
| Mar 10 | (day unspecified) Fermi and Herbert Anderson find that there are about two neutrons produced for every one consumed in fission. | Ref: 91 |
| Jun 10 | (day unspecified) Fermi and Szilard submit paper to "Physical Review" describing sub-critical neutron multiplication in a lattice of uranium oxide in water, but it is clear that natural uranium and water cannot make a self-sustaining reaction. | Ref: 91 |
| Jul 03 | Szilard writes to Fermi describing the idea of using a uranium lattice in carbon (graphite) to create a chain reaction. | Ref: 91 |
| Aug 02 | Albert Einstein sends a letter to President Roosevelt urging creation of an atomic weapons research program. | Ref: 70 |
| Aug 31 | Bohr and John A. Wheeler publish a theoretical analysis of fission. This theory implies U-235 is more fissile than U-238, and that the undiscovered element 94-239 is also very fissile. These implications are not immediately recognized. | Ref: 91 |
| Oct 11 | At Szilard's urging Alexander Sachs presents President Franklin D. Roosevelt with the "Einstein Letter". The letter, signed by Einstein but drafted by Szilard in consultation with Einstein, warns the President of the possibility of nuclear weapons and urging him take action to prevent Germany from gaining an advantage with them. | Ref: 91 |
| Oct 21 | First meeting of the Advisory Committee on Uranium (the "Briggs Uranium Committee") in Washington, DC, created at President Roosevelt's order. Lyman Briggs of the Bureau of Standards presides, attendees include Szilard, Wigner, Sachs, Edward Teller, Army Lt. Col. Adamson, and Navy Cmdr. Hoover. Physicists argue for urgent government attention, Adamson is hostile. Teller requests $6000 for research on preliminary uranium-graphite slow neutron experiments, which is grudgingly approved. A report of the meeting is sent to FDR on Nov. 1, but no action results. | Ref: 91 |
- 1940
| Feb 10 | (day unspecified) Frisch and Rudolf Peierls, living in the UK, consider the possibility of fast fission in U-235. Based on a theoretical estimate of the fast fission cross section they estimate the critical mass of pure U-235 at "a pound or two", and that a large percentage could be fissioned before explosive disassembly. They also estimate the likely effects of the bomb, and possible assembly methods, as well as estimates of the feasibility of isotope separation. After preparing a memorandum on this discovery, they give a copy to Mark Oliphant, who passes it along to Henry T. Tizard, chairman of the Committee on the Scientific Survey of Air Defense. At this point the "Tizard Committee" is the most important scientific committee for defense in Britain. | Ref: 91 |
| Mar 02 | The first direct measurements of the enormous slow fission cross section of U-235 are made by John Dunning at Columbia University. | Ref: 91 |
| Mar 10 | (day unspecified) After much prodding by Szilard, Briggs finally releases the promised $6000. | Ref: 91 |
| Apr 10 | First meeting of the UK committee (later code-named the MAUD Committee) organized by Tizard to consider Britain's actions regarding the "uranium problem". Research into isotope separation and fast fission is agreed upon. | Ref: 91 |
| Apr 27 | Second meeting of the Briggs Uranium Committee. Briggs'decision is that neither research on fast fission, nor work on building a critical uranium-graphite assembly, should begin until the small scale lab experiments, just getting underway, are finished. | Ref: 91 |
| May 10 | (day unspecified) George Kistiakowsky suggests gaseous diffusion as a possible means for producing U-235 to Vannevar Bush during a meeting at Carnegie Institution. | Ref: 91 |
| May 27 | Louis Turner mails Szilard a manuscript arguing that element 94-239 (not yet discovered) should be highly fissionable like U-235, and could be manufactured by bombarding U-238 with neutrons, to form U-239, which would undergo two beta-decays to form elements 93-239 and 94-239 in succession. | Ref: 91 |
| May 27 | Edwin McMillan and Philip Abelson submit a report "Radioactive Element 93" to "Physical Review" describing their discovery of neptunium produced by bombarding uranium with neutrons. Britain subsequently protests the publication as a violation of wartime secrecy. | Ref: 91 |
| Jun 10 | (day unspecified) The MAUD Committee acquires its name. Franz Simon begins research on isotope separation through gaseous diffusion. | Ref: 91 |
| Jul 01 | The newly founded National Defense Research Council (NDRC), headed by Vannevar Bush, takes over responsibility for uranium research. In his final report Briggs requests $140,000 for further work: $40,000 for lab measurements, and $100,000 for large scale uranium-graphite studies. Bush approves only $40,000. | Ref: 91 |
| Nov 01 | The $40,000 contract from the NDRC finally comes through and work begins at Columbia University to assemble a large sub-critical pile made of graphite and uranium oxide. | Ref: 91 |
| Nov 10 | (day unspecified) Dunning and Nobel prize winner Harold Urey begin investigating isotope separation techniques without US government support. | Ref: 91 |
| Dec 10 | (day unspecified) The MAUD Committee issues report on isotope separation authored by Simon. Report concludes manufacturing U-235 by gaseous diffusion is feasible on a scale suitable for weapons production. | Ref: 91 |
- 1941
| Feb 10 | (day unspecified) Philip Abelson begins working on uranium enrichment at the Naval Research Laboratory. He selects liquid thermal diffusion as the technique to pursue. | Ref: 91 |
| Feb 26 | Glenn Seaborg and Arthur Wahl conclusively demonstrate the presence of element 94, which they later name plutonium. | Ref: 91 |
| Mar 06 | Seaborg and Wahl isolate the first pure neptunium-239 (0.25 micrograms), in a matter of days it decays into a (barely) visible speck of pure plutonium. | Ref: 91 |
| Mar 10 | (day unspecified) Department of Terrestrial Magnetism (DTM) at the Carnegie Institution measures the fast cross section of U-235. Using it Peierls, on the MAUD Committee, calculates a new critical mass for U-235 at 18 LB as a bare sphere, or 9-10 lb. when surrounded by a reflector. A memorandum is prepared by the MAUD Committee describing the importance of fast fission for bomb design and transmits it the US - Lyman Briggs locks up the document on arrival and shows it to no one. | Ref: 91 |
| Mar 28 | Joseph Kennedy, Seaborg and Emilio Segre show that the plutonium sample undergoes slow fission, which implies it is a potential bomb material. | Ref: 91 |
| May 10 | (day unspecified) After months of growing pressure from scientists in Britain and the US (particularly Berkeley's Ernest Lawrence), Bush at the NDRC decides to review the prospects of nuclear energy further and engages Arthur Compton and the National Academy of Sciences for the task. The report is issued May 17 and treats military prospects favorably for power production, but does not address the design or manufacture of a bomb in any detail. | Ref: 91 |
| May 10 | (day unspecified) At this same time, Bush creates the larger and more powerful Office of Scientific Research and Development (OSRD), which is empowered to engage in large engineering projects in addition to research, and becomes its director. | Ref: 91 |
| May 10 | (day unspecified) Also during this month Tokutaro Hagiwara at the University of Kyoto delivers a speech in which he discusses the possibility of a fusion explosion being ignited by an atomic bomb, apparently the first such mention. | Ref: 91 |
| May 18 | Segre and Seaborg determine that the slow cross section of Pu-239 is 170% of that of U-235, proving it to be an even better prospective nuclear explosive. | Ref: 91 |
| Jul 10 | (day unspecified) Segre and Seaborg measure the fast fission cross section of Pu-239, finding a high value. | Ref: 91 |
| Jul 15 | The MAUD Committee approves its final report and disbands. The report describes atomic bombs in some technical detail, provides specific proposals for developing them, and includes cost estimates. | Ref: 91 |
| Aug 15 | (date given as Aug-Sep) Fermi and his team at Columbia begin assembling a sub-critical experimental pile containing 30 tons of graphite and 8 tons of uranium oxide. It gives a projected k value 0f 0.83, indicating purer materials are needed. | Ref: 91 |
| Sep 03 | With PM Winston Churchill's endorsement, the British Chiefs of Staff agree to begin development of an atomic bomb. | Ref: 91 |
| Sep 10 | (day unspecified) Fermi muses to Teller ("out of the blue") whether a fission explosion could ignite a fusion reaction in deuterium. After some study Teller concludes that it is impossible. | Ref: 91 |
| Oct 03 | The MAUD Committee Final Report reaches the US through official channels. | Ref: 91 |
| Oct 09 | Bush brings the MAUD Report to Pres. Roosevelt. FDR approves a broader project to investigate the feasibility and to confirm the British estimates. | Ref: 91 |
| Oct 21 | Compton holds a meeting in Schenectady, NY with Lawrence, Oppenheimer, George Kistiakowsky, and James Conant (new head of the NDRC), reviewing the MAUD Committee report, and the latest US work. The meeting ends with a consensus of the likely feasibility of a bomb. | Ref: 91 |
| Nov 01 | Compton issues the final NAS report endorsing the importance of exploring the feasibility of a U-235 bomb. The report is delivered to the president by Bush on November 27. | Ref: 91 |
| Nov 10 | (day unspecified) John Dunning and Eugene Booth at Columbia demonstrate the first measurable U-235 enrichment through gaseous diffusion. | Ref: 91 |
| Dec 06 | A meeting is held in Washington by Bush to organize an accelerated research project. Compton remains in charge. Urey is appointed to develop gaseous diffusion and heavy water production at Columbia; Lawrence will investigate electromagnetic separation at Berkeley; and Eger Murphree will develop centrifuge separation and oversee engineering issues. Conant advocates pursuing Pu-239, but no decision on this is made. | Ref: 91 |
| Dec 18 | The first meeting of the S-1 project is held, sponsored by the OSRD. S-1 is dedicated to the full scale research development of fission weapons. | Ref: 91 |
- 1942
| Jan 10 | (day unspecified) Compton creates the Metallurgical Laboratory (Met Lab) at the University of Chicago to act as a consolidated research center. He transfers work on "uranium burners" - reactors - to it. Oppenheimer organizes a program on fast neutron theoretical physics at Berkeley. | Ref: 91 |
| Feb 10 | (day unspecified) Compton asks Gregory Breit to coordinate physics research on fast neutron phenomena. At this time available experimental data on all aspects of fast neutron reactions and fission is extremely limited and imprecise. Theoretical techniques are also rudimentary. | Ref: 91 |
| Mar 23 | S-1 program leaders discuss priorities. Conant urges proceeding with *all* options for producing fissionable material simultaneously: gaseous diffusion, centrifuges, electromagnetic separation, and plutonium breeding using both graphite and heavy water reactors. He argues that redundant development will reduce the time to successful production to the shortest possible time, regardless of cost. | Ref: 91 |
| Apr 10 | (day unspecified) Fermi relocates to Chicago. He builds an experimental pile in the Stagg Field squash courts with a projected k value of 0.995, then begins planning the construction of the world's first man-made critical pile, to be called CP-1. | Ref: 91 |
| Apr 10 | (day unspecified) Fermi's efforts now shifts from demonstrating feasibility to securing graphite and uranium of adequate purity and in sufficient quantity to build the reactor. | Ref: 91 |
| Apr 10 | (day unspecified) Seaborg arrives in Chicago and starts work on developing an industrial-scale plutonium separation and purification process. | Ref: 91 |
| Apr 10 | (day unspecified) Percival Keith of the Kellog Co. begins designing a gaseous diffusion pilot plant. | Ref: 91 |
| May 18 | Breit quits, leaving the neutron physics effort without eadership. Compton asks Oppenheimer to take over in his place. | Ref: 91 |
| May 19 | Oppenheimer writes Lawrence that the atomic bomb problem was solved in principle and that six good physicists should have the details mostly worked out in six months. His optimism is based on the belief that gun assembly would suffice for both uranium and plutonium. | Ref: 91 |
| Jun 10 | (day unspecified) Oppenheimer joins the Met Lab to lead an effort on fast neutron physics, and prepares an outline for the entire neutron physics program. Production of plutonium through marathon irradiation by cyclotron begins. | Ref: 91 |
| Jun 10 | (day unspecified) Met Lab engineering council begins developingplans for large scale plutonium production reactors. | Ref: 91 |
| Jun 10 | (day unspecified) Pres. Roosevelt approves a plan for spending $85 million for a weapon development program. | Ref: 91 |
| Jun 18 | Due to continuing, and increasing, organization problems Col. James Marshall is ordered by Brig. Gen. Steyr to organize an Army Corps of Engineers District to take over and consolidate atomic bomb development. | Ref: 91 |
| Jul 10 | (date given as July to Sept) Oppenheimer assembles theoretical study group in Berkeley to examine the principles of bomb design. Included are Oppenheimer, Hans Bethe, Teller, John Van Vleck, Felix Bloch, Robert Serber, and Emil Konopinski. | Ref: 91 |
| Jul 10 | (date given as July to Sept) During the summer the theoretical study group develops the principles of atomic bomb design, and examines the feasibility of fusion bombs. | Ref: 91 |
| Jul 10 | (date given as July to Sept) The theoretical study group estimates the mass of U-235 required for a high yield detonation at 30 kg (estimated at 100 Kt), megaton range fusion bombs are also considered highly likely. | Ref: 91 |
| Jul 10 | (date given as July to Sept) Robert Oppenheimer emerges as a natural leader of the theoretical study group. | Ref: 91 |
| Jul 10 | (date given as July to Sept) Richard C. Tolman and Serber discuss the idea of using explosives to collapse a shell of fissile material in place of the gun assembly method. Serber reports that they co-authored a short paper on the subject, although this paper has not been found. | Ref: 91 |
| Jul 10 | (date given as July to Sept) Fermi and his staff are busy arranging for the materials required for CP-1. | Ref: 91 |
| Jul 27 | First shipment of irradiated uranium arrives at the Met Lab (300 lb.). | Ref: 91 |
| Aug 10 | (day unspecified) Col. Marshall of the Army Corps of Engineers creates a new District organization with the intentionally misleading name "Manhattan Engineer District" (MED). | Ref: 91 |
| Aug 13 | The Manhattan Project (the development of nuclear power for military purposes) is born. | Ref: 22 |
| Aug 15 | (date given as mid-Aug) Fermi's group demonstrates an experimental pile with a projected k value of close to 1.04. Achieving a chain reaction is now certain. | Ref: 91 |
| Aug 20 | Seaborg isolates pure plutonium through a separation process suitable for industrial scale use. | Ref: 91 |
| Aug 29 | A status report by Conant is relayed to the Secretary of War by Bush indicating the very positive results of Oppenheimer's group. Bush adds his concerns about the organization and leadership of the project, requesting new leadership be appointed. | Ref: 91 |
| Sep 13 | A meeting of the S-1 Executive Committee discusses the need for a central fast neutron laboratory, to be code-named Project Y. | Ref: 91 |
| Sep 15 | (thru Nov 15th) Fermi's group receives shipments of uranium and graphite for CP-1 and prepares them for assembly. | Ref: 91 |
| Sep 17 | Col. Leslie Richard Groves is notified at 10:30 a.m. by Gen. Brehon Somervell that his assignment overseas has been cancelled and that he will take another assignment - command of the Manhattan Engineer District. Groves' previous assignment had required overseeing ten billion dollars worth of construction projects, including the construction of the Pentagon. | Ref: 91 |
| Sep 18 | Groves buys 1250 tons of high quality Belgian Congo uranium ore stored on Staten Island. | Ref: 91 |
| Sep 19 | Groves buys Site X, 52000 acres of land on the Clinch River in Tennessee, the future site of Oak Ridge. Preliminary construction work begins soon after. | Ref: 91 |
| Sep 23 | Groves is promoted to Brigadier General. | Ref: 91 |
| Sep 26 | At Groves' insistence the Manhattan Project is granted approval by the War Production Board to use the highest emergency procurement priority in existence (AAA) when needed. | Ref: 91 |
| Sep 29 | Oppenheimer proposes that a "fast-neutron lab" to study fast neutron physics and develop designs for an atomic bomb be created. The idea at this point is for the lab to be a small research institution, it would not be involved in the engineering and production of nuclear weapons. | Ref: 91 |
| Oct 02 | First self-sustaining nuclear chain reaction demonstrated, Chicago. | Ref: 5 |
| Oct 05 | Col. Groves visits the Met Lab and meets the key scientists, including Oppenheimer. He orders key engineering decisions for plutonium production, under debate for months, be made in 5 days. | Ref: 91 |
| Oct 10 | (day unspecified) Groves puts Du Pont in charge of the plutonium production project. | Ref: 91 |
| Oct 10 | (day unspecified) Conant recommends to Bush that information exchange withBritain, already largely one-way (UK -> US), be sharply restricted. Bush passes this recommendation to Roosevelt. As a result the US loses access to British work in gaseous diffusion, which seriously delays successful plant completion. | Ref: 91 |
| Oct 10 | (day unspecified) Centrifuge separation is abandoned due to technical problems. | Ref: 91 |
| Oct 15 | Groves asks Oppenheimer to head Project Y, planned to be the new central laboratory for weapon physics research and design. | Ref: 91 |
| Oct 19 | Vannevar Bush approves Oppenheimer's appointment in meeting with Oppenheimer and Groves. | Ref: 91 |
| Nov 03 | Seaborg reports that due to plutonium's high alpha activity, slight amounts of light element impurities can cause a serious problem with neutron emission from alpha -> n reactions. This issue caused major concern with many project leaders, including Groves and Conant, not only due to its own significance, but because it raised apprehension about the impact of other unexplored phenomena. (This issue later became moot due to the problems with Pu-240 contamination.) Later in the month the Lewis Committee is formed to review progress and make recommendations. | Ref: 91 |
| Nov 16 | Fermi's group begins constructing CP-1 at Staggs Field using round-the-clock shifts. | Ref: 91 |
| Nov 16 | Groves and Oppenheimer visit the Los Alamos mesa in New Mexico and select it for "Site Y". | Ref: 91 |
| Dec 02 | Enrico Fermi oversees a self-sustaining nuclear chain reaction was demonstrated for the first time at the University of Chicago. | Ref: 70 |
| Dec 02 | 3:49 p.m. CP-1 goes critical. It demonstrates a k value of 1.0006, and is allowed to reach a thermal output of 0.5 watts (ultimately it operates at 200 watts maximum). | Ref: 91 |
| Dec 06 | M. M. Sundt Company is appointed contractor to build Los Alamos Laboratory in a handshake deal. Sundt begins construction immediately, without plans or blueprints in order to finish as quickly as possible. | Ref: 91 |
| Dec 10 | (day unspecified) During this month the work on gaseous diffusion is reorganized. On the strength of the Lewis Committee's recommendation, gaseous diffusion is chosen as the principal enrichment approach. | Ref: 91 |
| Dec 10 | (day unspecified) Kellex, a subsidiary of Kellog is created to build a plant, Keith is put in charge. Contracts are put in place, and hiring begins for plant construction. Kellex immediately begins work on a process for producing usable barrier material on an industrial scale. | Ref: 91 |
| Dec 10 | (day unspecified) Bush provides Roosevelt with an estimate placing the total cost for the Manhattan Project at $400 million (almost 5 times the previous estimate). Roosevelt approves the expenditure. | Ref: 91 |
| Dec 10 | (day unspecified) Plans and contracts are made for the construction of an experimental reactor, plutonium separation plant, and electromagnetic separation facility at Oak Ridge. | Ref: 91 |
| Dec 17 | After 17 days of work, Fermi's group completes CP-1. It contains 36.6 metric tons of uranium oxide, 5.6 metric tons of uranium metal, and 350 metric tons of graphite. Construction is halted sooner than planned when Fermi projects that a critical configuration has been reached. | Ref: 91 |
- 1943
| Jan 10 | (day unspecified) Groves acquires the Hanford Engineer Works, 780 square miles of land on the Columbia River in Washington for plutonium production reactors and separation plants. | Ref: 91 |
| Feb 18 | Construction begins at Oak Ridge on buildings for Y-12, the electromagnetic U-235 separation plant. | Ref: 91 |
| Mar 10 | (day unspecified) The original construction program nears completion, and staff begins arriving at Los Alamos to begin operations. From this point on the site grows non-stop through the end of the war. | Ref: 91 |
| Mar 27 | Tolman writes Oppenheimer about using explosives to collapse a shell into a critical mass. This is the earliest surviving reference to the idea of implosion (although this term was not used). | Ref: 91 |
| Apr 01 | Fencing of the reservation completed, Oak Ridge is closed off to public access. | Ref: 91 |
| Apr 01 | Construction begins on plant for manufacturing gaseous diffusion barriers in Decatur, Ill. although no barrier materials of usable quality have yet been produced. | Ref: 91 |
| Apr 10 | (day unspecified) At the beginning of the month the original building plan for Los Alamos is 96% complete. It is already apparent that the original construction program is inadequate to meet needs. | Ref: 91 |
| Apr 10 | (day unspecified) A series of staff conferences among the ~100 scientific staff members are held at Los Alamos. These include indoctrination lectures by Robert Serber (later published as "The Los Alamos Primer") on April 5, 7, 9, 12, and 14; and meetings to plan the laboratory's work from April 15 through May 6. | Ref: 91 |
| Apr 10 | (day unspecified) Seth Neddermeyer begins research on implosion, seeking to compress hollow metal assemblies. | Ref: 91 |
| Apr 10 | (day unspecified) Bethe is selected over Teller to head the theoretical division. | Ref: 91 |
| Apr 10 | (day unspecified) Teller is soon placed in charge of lower priority research on fusion weapons. | Ref: 91 |
| Apr 10 | (day unspecified) Oppenheimer projects that 100 g of 25% enriched U-235 will be produced by electromagnetic separation by 1 Jan 1944. | Ref: 91 |
| Apr 20 | A contract is concluded with the University of California to manage Los Alamos, acting as paymaster, accountant, and procurement agency. This contract (back dated to Jan. 1 for work already performed) is still in existence and serves as the basis for University of California management of both the Los Alamos and Lawrence Livermore laboratories. | Ref: 91 |
| May 10 | The Los Alamos review committee approves the laboratory's research program. | Ref: 91 |
| May 31 | Surveying begins for K-25, the gaseous diffusion uranium enrichment plant at Oak Ridge. | Ref: 91 |
| Jun 10 | (day unspecified) Navy Capt. William Parsons arrives at Los Alamos as Ordnance Division leader to begin directing gun assembly research. | Ref: 91 |
| Jun 24 | Working with cyclotron produced plutonium, Emilio Segre determines that the spontaneous fission rate is 5 fissions/kg-sec. This is well within the assembly speed capability of a high speed gun. | Ref: 91 |
| Jul 04 | Neddermeyer conducts first explosion in the implosion research program (currently consisting of Neddermeyer, and 3 informal assistants). | Ref: 91 |
| Jul 10 | (thru the 15th) The first nuclear physics experiment is conducted at Los Alamos (the measurement of Pu-239 fission neutron yield), inaugurating it as a functioning laboratory. | Ref: 91 |
| Aug 01 | This day marked the groundbreaking ceremony in Oak Ridge, TN for the first uranium 235 plant. (Uranium 235 was needed to build the A-bomb.) The uranium manufacturing facility cost $280,000,000 to build and was completed in the summer of 1944. | Ref: 4 |
| Aug 10 | (day unspecified) Despite the efforts of more than 1000 researchers at Kellex and Columbia University, no suitable diffusion barrier material has yet been developed. | Ref: 91 |
| Aug 10 | (day unspecified) Due to lagging progress on gaseous diffusion, and continuing uncertainties about the required amount of U-235 for a bomb, Groves decides to double the size of the Y-12 plant. | Ref: 91 |
| Aug 10 | (day unspecified) The first Alpha electromagnetic uranium separation unit begins operation. | Ref: 91 |
| Aug 10 | (day unspecified) Construction staff at Oak Ridge now exceeds 20,000. Construction begins on the cooling systems for the production reactors at Hanford. Construction staff is about 5,000. | Ref: 91 |
| Sep 17 | First shot fired in gun assembly research program at Los Alamos. The focus at this point is on developing a high velocity gun for plutonium since a uranium gun would be much easier to make. | Ref: 91 |
| Sep 20 | Johann Von Neumann arrives on a visit to Los Alamos and points out the potential for high compression from implosion. This is a clear advantage for the technique which would make a bomb more efficient, and require a smaller critical mass. Teller and Bethe begin investigating the subject theoretically, Oppenheimer and Groves become very interested in its potential, and efforts to accelerate the program begin. John Von Neumann agrees to work on the physics of implosion in his spare time. | Ref: 91 |
| Sep 23 | Oppenheimer suggests recruiting George Kistiakowsky, the leading explosives research director at OSRD, to aid an expanded implosion effort. | Ref: 91 |
| Oct 04 | Du Pont engineers release reactor design drawings for the first Hanford plutonium production pile, B-100, allowing construction to begin. | Ref: 91 |
| Oct 09 | (day unspecified) The first Alpha racetrack (containing 96 units) is completed. A work force of 4800 to run Y-12 has been assembled. Start up is unsuccessful due to unexplained shorts in the magnets. | Ref: 91 |
| Oct 09 | (day unspecified) Project Alberta, the full scale atomic bomb delivery program, begins. Norman Ramsey appointed to select and modify aircraft for delivering atomic bombs. | Ref: 91 |
| Oct 10 | Site preparation starts for the B-100 plutonium production reactor at Hanford. | Ref: 91 |
| Oct 21 | First concrete is poured for the K-25 building at Oak Ridge. | Ref: 91 |
| Nov 04 | The X-10 pile goes critical at Oak Ridge. This air-cooled experimental pile begins producing the first substantial (gram) amounts of plutonium to assist research into its properties. The world supply of plutonium at this time is 2.5 mg, produced by cyclotrons. | Ref: 91 |
| Nov 04 | A Manhattan Project Governing Board meeting approves an ambitious implosion research program, intended to develop it to the point of usability in six months. | Ref: 91 |
| Nov 10 | (day unspecified) The top experts in England on fission weapons, many former members of the MAUD committee, depart England for the US to assist the atomic bomb project. Included are Bohr, Frisch, Peierls, Chadwick, William Penney, George Placzek, P.B. Moon, James Tuck, Egon Bretscher, and Klaus Fuchs. | Ref: 91 |
| Nov 10 | (day unspecified) The Navy approves Abelson's plan to build a liquid thermal diffusion pilot plant for enriching uranium. | Ref: 91 |
| Nov 10 | (day unspecified) The world's first sample of plutonium in metal form is produced by reducing PuF4 with Ba at the Met Lab. | Ref: 91 |
| Nov 29 | The first B-29 modifications begin at Wright Field, Ohio to adapt it for carrying atomic bombs. | Ref: 91 |
| Dec 10 | (day unspecified) After attempts to bring the first Alpha racetrack into operation fail, Y-12 is shut down for equipment rebuilding. | Ref: 91 |
| Dec 10 | (day unspecified) Segre measures the spontaneous fission rate of U-235 at Los Alamos, and finds it lower than expected. This allows a substantial reduction in performance of the planned gun assembly method for uranium. | Ref: 91 |
| Dec 10 | (day unspecified) Chemical separation of reactor-produced plutonium begins, using fuel from the X-10 pile. | Ref: 91 |
- 1944
| Jan 10 | (day unspecified) Kistiakowsky arrives at Los Alamos to assist Neddermeyer in implosion research. It becomes increasingly clear that Neddermeyer's academic research style is unsuited to directing a rapidly expanding research and engineering program. | Ref: 91 |
| Jan 10 | (day unspecified) Problems with developing suitable diffusion barriers leads Groves to switch planned production to a new type of barrier, creating months of delays in equipping K-25 for operation. | Ref: 91 |
| Jan 10 | (day unspecified) Abelson, at the Naval Research Laboratory, begins constructing a thermal diffusion uranium enrichment plant. | Ref: 91 |
| Jan 10 | (day unspecified) Upon learning about the problems with the Manhattan Project's gaseous diffusion plant, Abelson leaks information about his technology to Oppenheimer. | Ref: 91 |
| Jan 10 | (day unspecified) Groves and Oppenheimer decide to plan for a fission bomb test (none was envisioned before this). Groves stipulates that the active material must be recoverable if a fizzle occurs, so the construction of Jumbo, a 214 ton steel container (25 ft x 12 ft), is authorized. | Ref: 91 |
| Jan 11 | An implosion theory group is set up with Teller as head. | Ref: 91 |
| Feb 10 | (day unspecified) With the concrete building to house it complete, construction begins on the first reactor at Hanford, the B pile. | Ref: 91 |
| Feb 10 | (day unspecified) The Los Alamos Governing Board reevaluates deuterium fusion research and determines that tritium would be necessary to make an explosive reaction. Priority of fusion bomb work is further downgraded. | Ref: 91 |
| Feb 16 | Kistiakowsky becomes full-time Los Alamos staff member, replacing Neddermeyer as leader of implosion research. | Ref: 91 |
| Mar 03 | Drop tests of dummy atomic bombs begin from specially modified B-29s. | Ref: 91 |
| Mar 10 | (day unspecified) Segre has improved his spontaneous fission estimates in cyclotron plutonium (essentially pure Pu-239) to 11 fissions/kg-sec, this is still acceptable for gun assembly, but greatly narrows the margin of security. | Ref: 91 |
| Apr 05 | The first sample of reactor produced plutonium arrives from Oak Ridge. Segre immediately begins monitoring its spontaneous fission rate. | Ref: 91 |
| Apr 10 | (day unspecified) IBM calculating equipment arrives at Los Alamos and is put to work on implosion research. | Ref: 91 |
| Apr 10 | (day unspecified) James Tuck suggests idea of using explosive lenses to create spherical converging implosion waves. | Ref: 91 |
| Apr 10 | (day unspecified) Monsanto begins delivering polonium for initiator research. The rate is initially 2.5 curies/month. | Ref: 91 |
| Apr 15 | Segre makes a preliminary estimate of a spontaneous fission rate of over 50 fissions/kg-sec (due to Pu-240 contamination), far too high for gun assembly. The report is kept quiet due to limited statistics, and observations continue. | Ref: 91 |
| May 09 | The 50 milliWatt Water Boiler reactor goes critical at Los Alamos. Holding 565 g of U-235 (in the form of 14.7% enriched uranyl sulfate), dissolved in a 12" sphere of water, this is the world's first reactor to use enriched uranium, and the first critical assembly constructed at Los Alamos. | Ref: 91 |
| May 10 | (day unspecified) Los Alamos staff exceeds 1200 employees. | Ref: 91 |
| May 10 | (day unspecified) Six months after the start of accelerated implosion research, little progress towards successful implosion has been made. Inadequate diagnostic equipment prevent accurate measurement of implosion process, no scheme to avoid asymmetry has yet shown promise. The current approach is to use many simultaneous detonation points over the surface of a sphere, and try different methods of inert spacers or gaps to suppress the shaped charge-like jets that form when detonation waves from adjacent initiation points merge. Spalling (the ejection of fragments) from the interior surface of the hollow core is a serious problem, as is simply getting precise simultaneous detonation. | Ref: 91 |
| May 10 | (day unspecified) Teller is removed as head of the implosion theory group, and also from fission weapon research entirely, due to conflicts with Bethe and his increasing obsession with the idea of the Super (hydrogen bomb). | Ref: 91 |
| May 10 | (day unspecified) Two British scientists join Los Alamos who have important impacts on the implosion program. Geoffrey Taylor (arrived May 24) points out implosion instability problems (especially the Rayleigh-Taylor instability), which ultimately leads to a very conservative design to minimize possible instability. | Ref: 91 |
| May 10 | (day unspecified) James Tuck brings the idea of explosives lenses for detonation wave shaping (two-D lenses for plane wave generation originally proposed by M. J. Poole in England, 1942), but suggests developing 3-D lenses to create a spherical implosion. | Ref: 91 |
| May 28 | First test of the exploding wire detonator, used to achieve precise, reliable simultaneous detonation for implosion. | Ref: 91 |
| Jun 05 | After visiting the uranium enrichment pilot plan at the Naval research Laboratory, a team of Manhattan Project experts recommends that a thermal diffusion plant be built to feed enriched material to the electromagnetic enrichment plant at Oak Ridge. | Ref: 91 |
| Jun 10 | (day unspecified) Oppenheimer replaces Neddermeyer with Kistiakowsky as director of implosion research. | Ref: 91 |
| Jun 10 | (day unspecified) Bethe and Peierls work on developing explosive lens concept. | Ref: 91 |
| Jun 10 | (day unspecified) Von Neumann provides design breakthrough for the slow component for focusing. | Ref: 91 |
| Jun 18 | Groves contracts to have S-50, a liquid thermal diffusion uranium enrichment plant, built at Oak Ridge in no more than three months. | Ref: 91 |
| Jul 01 | The Manhattan Project is granted the highest project-wide procurement priority (AA-1). | Ref: 91 |
| Jul 04 | Oppenheimer reveals Segre's spontaneous fission measurements to the Los Alamos staff. The neutron emission for reactor-produced plutonium is too high for gun assembly to work. The measured rate is 50 fissions/kg-sec, the fission rate in Hanford plutonium is expected to be over 100 times higher still. | Ref: 91 |
| Jul 10 | (day unspecified) Experiments with explosive lens designs begin by mid-month when 2-D models are fired. | Ref: 91 |
| Jul 10 | (day unspecified) The design for the gun gadget neutron initiator is completed. | Ref: 91 |
| Jul 20 | The Los Alamos Administrative Board decides on a reorganization plan to direct the laboratory's full resources on implosion. Instead of being organized around scientific and engineering areas of expertise, all work is organized around whether it applies to implosion, or the uranium gun weapon, with the former receiving most of the resources. The reorganization is completed in less than two weeks. | Ref: 91 |
| Aug 10 | (day unspecified) The Air Force begins modifying 17 B-29s for combat delivery of atomic weapons at the Glenn L. Martin plant in Omaha. | Ref: 91 |
| Aug 10 | (day unspecified) Parsons assesses February 1945 as the earliest an implosion lens system can be ready for full scale test "with extremely good breaks", and most likely late 1945. | Ref: 91 |
| Aug 10 | (day unspecified) A. Francis Birch takes over the uranium gun project. | Ref: 91 |
| Sep 10 | (day unspecified) Air Force Lt. Col. Paul Tibbets begins organizing the 509th Composite Group, which will deliver atomic bombs in combat, at Wendover Field, Utah. | Ref: 91 |
| Sep 10 | (day unspecified) At this point K-25 is half built, but no usable diffusion barriers have been produced. | Ref: 91 |
| Sep 10 | (day unspecified) The Y-12 plant is operating at only 0.05% efficiency. The total production of highly enriched uranium to date is a few grams. | Ref: 91 |
| Sep 10 | (day unspecified) Now, less than one year before the eventual use of atomic weapons, the prospects for developing atomic weapons in time to assist the war effort look grim despite enormous expenditures. The only workable bomb design at hand, the gun-type weapon, requires U-235 which has no practical production methods available. Plutonium production has not yet begun, but the production techniques appear to have a high probability of success. However plausible approaches to building a plutonium bomb do not exist. | Ref: 91 |
| Sep 10 | (day unspecified) A workable theory of explosive lenses does not exist (and is not solved before the end of the war), so trial and error techniques must be used for development. Unfortunately, observing implosions is extremely difficult and simply obtaining diagnostic data is a major barrier to success. | Ref: 91 |
| Sep 10 | (day unspecified) Manufacturing test lenses is a serious problem. The explosives are difficult materials to work with and made delicate castings, mold making was a slowly developing art, and the lenses required very good quality control. | Ref: 91 |
| Sep 10 | (date given as Fall) Robert Christy suggests the "Christy gadget", the use of a solid core that is raised to supercriticality solely by compressing the metal to twice normal density. This conservative implosion design avoids instability and spalling problems, but the period of maximum compression is brief and requires a "modulated initiator" (a neutron generator that emits a burst at a precise moment). | Ref: 91 |
| Sep 16 | S-50 enrichment plant begins partial operation at Oak Ridge, but leaks prevent substantial output. | Ref: 91 |
| Sep 22 | The first RaLa implosion test shot is made. This diagnostic technique used 100 curies of radiolanthanum produced by the X-Reactor at Oak Ridge to provide an intense gamma source for making observations of implosion (essentially an internal x-ray generator). This is the largest radioisotope source ever assembled in the world up to this time. | Ref: 91 |
| Sep 26 | Loading uranium into the first full scale plutonium reactor, the B pile, at Hanford is completed. This reactor contains 200 tons of uranium metal, 1200 tons of graphite, and is cooled by 5 m^3 of water/sec. It designed to operate at 250 megawatts, producing some 6 kg of plutonium a month. Fermi supervises reactor start-up. | Ref: 91 |
| Sep 27 | (thru the 30th) After several hours of operation at 100 megawatts, the B pile inexplicably shuts down, then starts up again by itself the next day. Within a few days this is determined to be due to poisoning by the highly efficient neutron absorber Xenon-135, a radioactive fission product. The reactor must be modified to add extra reactivity to overcome this effect before production can begin. | Ref: 91 |
| Oct 12 | The first B-29s arrive in the Mariana Islands to begin bombing Japan. Japan has so far remained free from air attacks (except for the symbolic Doolittle raid in 1942). | Ref: 91 |
| Oct 27 | Oppenheimer approves plans for a bomb test in the Jornada del Muerto valley at the Alamagordo Bombing Range. Groves approves 5 days later, provided that the test be conducted in Jumbo. | Ref: 91 |
| Nov 10 | (day unspecified) Y-12 output has reached 40 grams of highly enriched uranium a day. | Ref: 91 |
| Dec 10 | (day unspecified) Y-12 output climbs to 90 grams of highly enriched uranium a day. | Ref: 91 |
| Dec 10 | (day unspecified) Work begins on an implosion initiator for the solid core bomb, it is not clear at this point if one can be made. | Ref: 91 |
| Dec 15 | (date given as mid-Dec) First successful explosive lens tests conducted at Los Alamos, establishing the feasibility of making an implosion bomb. | Ref: 91 |
| Dec 17 | The D pile goes critical with sufficient reactivity to overcome fission product poisoning effects. Large scale plutonium production begins. | Ref: 91 |
| Dec 22 | First Fat Man bomb assembly is completed as production gets underway. Explosive lenses and nuclear material are not yet available, the bomb assemblies are used for airdrop and ground handling practice. | Ref: 91 |
| Dec 26 | Processing of irradiated uranium slugs to separate plutonium begins at Hanford. | Ref: 91 |
| Dec 28 | The modified B pile is restarted. | Ref: 91 |
- 1945
| Jan 10 | (day unspecified) The prospects for the plutonium bomb are looking up although meeting an August 1 deadline imposed by Groves is far from certain. | Ref: 91 |
| Jan 10 | (day unspecified) Y-12 output reaches an average of 204 grams of 80% U-235 a day; projected production of sufficient material for a bomb (~40 kg) is July 1. | Ref: 91 |
| Jan 10 | (day unspecified) Usable barrier tubes begin arriving at the K-25 plant. 160 g of plutonium from the X-Pile is on hand at Los Alamos. The first shipment from Hanford has not yet arrived. | Ref: 91 |
| Jan 10 | (day unspecified) Substantial production of ~0.85% enriched uranium begins at S-50, with ten of 21 racks going in to operation. | Ref: 91 |
| Jan 18 | The Dragon experiment, conducted by Frisch in which a U-235 hydride slug is dropped through a barely subcritical U-235 hydride assembly creates the world's first assembly critical through prompt neutrons alone (prompt critical). The largest energy production for a drop is 20 megawatts for 3 milliseconds (the temperature rises 6şC in that time). | Ref: 91 |
| Jan 20 | Curtis LeMay takes command of the Twentieth Air Force in Marianas. Fleet contains 345 aircraft, but in three months of bombing none of the nine top priority targets have been destroyed. | Ref: 91 |
| Jan 20 | The first stage of the K-25 plant is charged with uranium hexafluoride and begins operation. | Ref: 91 |
| Jan 31 | Robert Bacher reports to Oppenheimer that a Po-210/Be-9 implosion initiator (still to be designed) is possible. | Ref: 91 |
| Feb 10 | (day unspecified) The F reactor goes on-line at Hanford, raising theoretical production capacity to 21 kg/month. | Ref: 91 |
| Feb 10 | (day unspecified) Uranium gun design is completed and frozen. Only planning for deployment and combat use once the U-235 is delivered is now required (although studies of an improved gun design, begun on Dec. 7 and later abandoned, are underway). | Ref: 91 |
| Feb 10 | (day unspecified) Planning for an implosion bomb test begins in earnest. | Ref: 91 |
| Feb 10 | (day unspecified) Initiator tests begin. | Ref: 91 |
| Feb 10 | (day unspecified) Demand for polonium rises to 100 curies/month. | Ref: 91 |
| Feb 10 | (day unspecified) Plutonium begins arriving from Hanford. | Ref: 91 |
| Feb 10 | (day unspecified) Admiral Nimitz, Commander in Chief, Pacific Ocean Areas, is notified of the nature of the atomic bomb project. | Ref: 91 |
| Feb 10 | (day unspecified) Tinian Island is selected as the base of operations for atomic attack. | Ref: 91 |
| Feb 20 | First stage of K-25 begins operating. | Ref: 91 |
| Feb 28 | A meeting between Oppenheimer, Groves, Kistiakowsky, Conant, Tolman, Bethe, and Charles Lauritsen is held to fix the design approach for the plutonium bomb. It is agreed that work will focus on the solid core Christy gadget, use explosive lenses, use a modulated initiator, and electric detonators. The use of Composition B and Baratol for the lenses was also decided, as was the multiple lens configuration and detonator arrangement. However none of these approaches or components have been proved yet. Solid core compression has not been demonstrated at this time. A schedule for completing research, development, engineering, and testing is also established. The (partial) goals are: 15 April: solve detonator timing problem; have detonators in full production; begin large-scale lens production; 25 April: begin hemisphere shots to measure shock wave convergence; 15 May: demonstrate implosion compression in full scale test; 4 June: begin lens fabrication for Trinity test; 4 July: begin assembly of Trinity test gadget. | Ref: 91 |
| Mar 01 | The powerful Cowpuncher Committee is organized to "ride herd" on implosion bomb development. | Ref: 91 |
| Mar 05 | Oppenheimer officially freezes explosive lens design. | Ref: 91 |
| Mar 09 | (and 10th) LeMay launches an all-out low altitude fire bomb raid on Tokyo with 334 B-29s, stripped of guns for greater bomb load, carrying 2000 tons of incendiaries. 15.8 square miles of Tokyo burn, killing at least 100,000 people, injuring 1,000,000 (41,000 seriously). | Ref: 91 |
| Mar 11 | (thru the 18th) During these eight days fire raids with similar tactics are launched on Nagoya, Osaka, and Kobe; the second, third, and fourth largest cities in Japan. An additional 16 square miles of city are burned, killing more than 50,000 people. | Ref: 91 |
| Mar 14 | (date given as mid-March) The first evidence of solid compression from implosion is observed (5%). | Ref: 91 |
| Mar 15 | All 21 racks at the S-50 thermal diffusion plant finally in operation. | Ref: 91 |
| Apr 03 | Preparations begin at Tinian Island to support the 509th Composite Group, and to assembly the atomic bombs. | Ref: 91 |
| Apr 11 | Oppenheimer reports that Kistiakowsky has achieved optimal performance with implosion compression in sub-scale tests. | Ref: 91 |
| Apr 12 | Otto Frisch completes criticality and "zero-yield" experiments with U-235 at Los Alamos. | Ref: 91 |
| Apr 13 | Pres. Truman learns of the existence of atomic bomb development from Secretary of War Henry Stimson. | Ref: 91 |
| Apr 25 | Truman receives first in-depth briefing on the Manhattan Project from Stimson and Groves. | Ref: 91 |
| Apr 27 | The first meeting of the Target Committee to select targets for atomic bombing. Seventeen targets are selected for study: Tokyo Bay (for a non-lethal demonstration), Yokohama, Nagoya, Osaka, Kobe, Hiroshima, Kokura, Fukuoka, Nagasaki, and Sasebo (some of these are soon dropped because they had already been burned down). | Ref: 91 |
| Apr 30 | Initiator Committee (Bethe, Fermi and Christy) selects the most promising design for fission initiator (neutron generator) to be used in the implosion bomb. The "Urchin" design is favored, and work on initiator fabrication begins. | Ref: 91 |
| Apr 30 | First batch of supplies for the atomic bomb deployment leaves for Tinian from Wendover Field, UT. | Ref: 91 |
| May 02 | The first Raytheon Mark II X-Unit arrives for detonation testing. | Ref: 91 |
| May 07 | The 100-ton test is conducted. 108 tons of TNT, laced with 1000 curies of reactor fission products, are exploded 800 yards from Trinity ground zero to test instrumentation for Trinity. This is the largest instrumented explosion conducted up to this date. | Ref: 91 |
| May 09 | General procedures for atomic bombing are completed by D.M. Dennison, under Parsons. | Ref: 91 |
| May 10 | (and 11th) Target Committee reconvenes. On the committee now are Oppenheimer, Von Neumann, Parsons, and Bethe. Meeting discusses issues combat employment of atomic bombs (e.g. proper burst height, etc.). Target list is shortened to Kyoto, Hiroshima, Yokohama, and Kokura Arsenal (Niigata is considered). | Ref: 91 |
| May 15 | (date given as mid-May) Little Boy is ready for combat use, except for the U-235 core. It is estimated sufficient material will be available by 1 August. | Ref: 91 |
| May 28 | Target Committee meets with Lt. Col. Tibbets in attendance. The meeting reviews preparation for delivering atomic bombs, and status of conventional bombing of Japan. Tibbets estimates that by Jan. 1, 1946 all major cities of Japan will have been destroyed by fire bombing. The target list is now Kyoto, Hiroshima, and Niigata. | Ref: 91 |
| May 30 | Sec. of War Stimson rules out Kyoto, the ancient capital of Japan, as a target for atomic attack. | Ref: 91 |
| May 31 | Critical mass tests with plutonium begin at Los Alamos. | Ref: 91 |
| Jun 01 | The Interim Committee, organized to guide the final conduct of the war and the post-war reconstruction and lead by Secretary of State Designate James Byrnes, issues the recommendations that the atomic bomb be dropped as soon as possible, that an urban area be the target, and that no prior warning be given. | Ref: 91 |
| Jun 10 | 509th Composite Group crews begin arriving on Tinian with their modified B-29s. | Ref: 91 |
| Jun 21 | The first implosion initiator is ready. | Ref: 91 |
| Jun 24 | Frisch confirms that the implosion core design is satisfactory after criticality tests. | Ref: 91 |
| Jun 27 | Groves meets with Oppenheimer and Parsons to plan delivery of atomic bombs to the Pacific theater. | Ref: 91 |
| Jun 28 | (date given as late-June) LeMay estimates that the Twentieth Air Force will finish destroying the 60 most important cities in Japan by Oct. 1. | Ref: 91 |
| Jun 28 | (date given as late-June) The T-5 group in the Los Alamos T (Theory) Division estimates the Trinity explosion yield at 4-13 Kt. | Ref: 91 |
| Jul 03 | Casting of the U-235 projectile for Little Boy is completed. | Ref: 91 |
| Jul 06 | Machining of the uranium reflector for the Trinity test completed. | Ref: 91 |
| Jul 07 | Explosives lens casting for Trinity completed. | Ref: 91 |
| Jul 10 | (day unspecified) Final preparations begin at the New Mexico test site, the Jornada del Muerto at the Alamagordo Bombing Range, for the first atomic bomb test, code named Trinity. The date is set for July 16. Jumbo is not used in the test, since plutonium delivery schedules make recovery of active material (in the event of a fizzle) less important. | Ref: 91 |
| Jul 10 | The best available lens castings are selected for Trinity. | Ref: 91 |
| Jul 11 | Assembly of Gadget, the first atomic bomb begins. | Ref: 91 |
| Jul 12 | The plutonium core and the Gadget components leave Los Alamos for the test site separately. | Ref: 91 |
| Jul 13 | Assembly of Gadget begins at 1300 hours. | Ref: 91 |
| Jul 13 | Assembly of Gadget's explosive lens, uranium reflector, and plutonium core is completed at Ground Zero at 1745 hours. | Ref: 91 |
| Jul 14 | Gadget is hoisted to the top of the 100 foot test tower, and the detonators are installed and connected. Final test preparations begin. Little Boy bomb units, accompanied by the U-235 projectile, are shipped out of San Francisco on the USS. Indianapolis for Tinian. The only full scale test of the implosion lens system (before Gadget) is conducted. Initial analysis indicates failure. Bethe later corrects mistaken calculations and finds that the measurements are consistent with optimum performance. | Ref: 91 |
| Jul 16 | At 5:29:45 a.m. Gadget is detonated in the first atomic explosion in history. The explosive yield is 20-22 Kt (initially estimated at 18.9 Kt), vaporizing the steel tower. | Ref: 91 |
| Jul 19 | Oppenheimer suggest to Groves that the U-235 from Little Boy be reworked into uranium/plutonium composite cores for making more implosion bombs (4 implosion bombs could be made from Little Boy's pit). Groves rejects the idea since it would delay combat use. | Ref: 91 |
| Jul 20 | The 509th begins flying practice missions over Japan. | Ref: 91 |
| Jul 20 | Stimson, in Potsdam for meeting between Truman and Stalin, receives current target list. In order of choice it is: Hiroshima, Kokura, and Niigata. He also receives an estimate of atomic bomb availability: Fat Man should be ready for use on Aug. 6, second Fat Man-type by Aug. 24, 3 should be available in September, and more each month - reaching 7 or more in December. | Ref: 91 |
| Jul 20 | First A-bomb test unit dropped by 509th at Tinian. | Ref: 91 |
| Jul 20 | Combat hemispheres for Fatman are fabricated. | Ref: 91 |
| Jul 24 | Truman discloses the existence of the atomic bomb to Stalin (who had already been informed about it by his spies). | Ref: 91 |
| Jul 24 | Groves drafts the directive authorizing the use of the atomic bombs as soon as bomb availability and weather permit. It lists the following targets in order of priority: Hiroshima, Kokura, Niigata, and Nagasaki. This directive constitutes final authorization for atomic attack, no further orders are issued. | Ref: 91 |
| Jul 24 | The U-235 target for Little Boy is cast at Los Alamos. | Ref: 91 |
| Jul 25 | Peer de Silva, the official courier for the Fatman core, signs for 6.1 kg of plutonium at Los Alamos. | Ref: 91 |
| Jul 26 | The Indianapolis delivers Little Boy bomb units, and the U-235 projectile to Tinian. | Ref: 91 |
| Jul 26 | Five C-54 transport planes leave Kirtland Air Force Base, Albuquerque with: the Little Boy U-235 target (its final component); the Fat Man plutonium core, and its initiator. | Ref: 91 |
| Jul 28 | The five C-54 transports arrive at Tinian. All components for Little Boy are now on site, but no Fat Man bomb assemblies have yet arrived. | Ref: 91 |
| Jul 30 | The nuclear components (target, projectile, and 4 initiators) are inserted into bomb unit number L11. | Ref: 91 |
| Jul 31 | The assembly of Little Boy is completed. It is ready for use the next day. | Ref: 91 |
| Aug 01 | A typhoon approaching Japan prevents launching an attack with Little Boy. Several days are required for weather to clear. | Ref: 91 |
| Aug 02 | Fat Man bomb cases F-31 and F-32 arrive on Tinian. Fat Man assembly begins. Bombing date is set for August 11. | Ref: 91 |
| Aug 04 | Tibbets briefs the 509th Composite Group about the impending attack. He reveals that they will drop immensely powerful bombs, but the nature of the weapons are not revealed. | Ref: 91 |
| Aug 05 | At 1500 Gen. LeMay officially confirms the mission for the next day. Tibbets will take over as pilot, Parsons will fly as weaponeer. Tibbets names B-29 No. 82 the "Enola Gay" after his mother, over the objections of its pilot Robert Lewis. Little Boy is loaded on the plane. Dummy Fat Man unit F33 (complete except for plutonium core) is prepared for practice bombing run. | Ref: 91 |
| Aug 06 | 0000: final briefing, the target of choice is Hiroshima. Tibbets is pilot, Lewis is co-pilot. | Ref: 91 |
| Aug 06 | 0245: Enola Gay begins takeoff roll. | Ref: 91 |
-
| Aug 06 | 0850: Flying at 31,000 ft Enola Gay crosses Shikoku due east of Hiroshima. Bombing conditions are good, the aimpoint is easily visible, no opposition is encountered. | Ref: 91 |
| Aug 06 | 0915:17: Little Boy is released at 31060 feet. | Ref: 91 |
| Aug 06 | 0916:02: (8:16:02 Hiroshima time) Little Boy explodes at an altitude of 1850 feet, 550 feet from the aim point, the Aioi Bridge, with a yield of 12.5-18 Kt (best estimate is 15 Kt). | Ref: 91 |
| Aug 08 | Fat Man unit F33 is dropped in practice bomb run. | Ref: 91 |
| Aug 08 | Assembly of Fat Man unit F31 with the plutonium core completed in the early morning. | Ref: 91 |
| Aug 08 | 2200: Fat Man is loaded on B-29 "Bock's Car". | Ref: 91 |
| Aug 09 | 0347: Bock's Car takes off from Tinian, the target of choice is Kokura Arsenal. Charles Sweeney is pilot. Soon after takeoff he discovers that the fuel system will not pump from the 600 gallon reserve tank. | Ref: 91 |
| Aug 09 | 1044: Bock's Car arrives at Kokura but finds it covered by haze, the aimpoint cannot be seen. Flak and fighters appear, forcing the plane to stop searching for it. | Ref: 91 |
| Aug 09 | Sweeney turns toward Nagasaki, the only secondary target in range. Upon arriving at Nagasaki, Bock's Car has enough fuel for only one pass over the city even with an emergency landing at Okinawa. Nagasaki is covered with clouds, but one gap allows a drop several miles from the intended aimpoint. | Ref: 91 |
| Aug 09 | 11:02 (Nagasaki time): Fat Man explodes at 1950 feet near the perimeter of the city, scoring a direct hit on the Mitsubishi Steel and Arms Works. Yield is 19-23 Kt (best estimate is 21 Kt). | Ref: 91 |
| Aug 09 | Oppenheimer cables Groves with the following shipping schedule: 11 Aug- first quality HE unit; 12 Aug- next plutonium core; 14 Aug- another first quality HE unit. | Ref: 91 |
| Aug 11 | Groves reports that the second plutonium core would be ready for shipment on August 12 or 13, with a bombing possible on August 17 or 18. | Ref: 91 |
| Aug 11 | Truman orders a halt to further atomic bombing until further orders are issued. | Ref: 91 |
| Aug 11 | Groves decides to delay shipping the second Pu core and contacts Bacher just after he had signed receipt for shipping the core to Tinian. The core is retrieved from car before it leaves Los Alamos. | Ref: 91 |
| Aug 13 | Stimson recommends shipping the second plutonium core to Tinian. | Ref: 91 |
| Aug 17 | Oppenheimer warns Stimson that: 1. atomic weapons would improve qualitatively and quantitatively over coming years; 2. adequate defenses against nuclear weapons would not be developed; 3. the US would not retain hegemony over nuclear weapons; 4. wars could not be prevented even if better nuclear weapons were developed. | Ref: 91 |
| Sep 09 | S-50 plant is completely shut down. | Ref: 91 |
| Oct 08 | President Truman announced that the secret of the atomic bomb would be shared only with Britain and Canada. | Ref: 70 |
| Oct 16 | Oppenheimer resigns as director of Los Alamos, accepting a post at Caltech. | Ref: 91 |
| Oct 17 | Norris Bradbury takes over as director of Los Alamos (a position he would hold for 25 years). | Ref: 91 |
| Dec 26 | The United States, Soviet Union and Great Britain, end a 10-day meeting, seeking an atomic rule by the UN Council. | Ref: 2 |
- 1946
| Jan 24 | The General Assembly adopts its first resolution, a measure calling for the peaceful uses of atomic energy and the elimination of atomic and other weapons of mass destruction. | Ref: 3 |
| Feb 28 | The U.S. Army declares that it will use V-2 rocket to test radar as an atomic rocket defense system. | Ref: 2 |
| May 26 | A patent is filed in the United States for the H-bomb. | Ref: 2 |
| Jul 01 | The United States exploded a 20-kiloton atomic bomb near Bikini Atoll in the Pacific Ocean. | Ref: 70 |
| Jul 24 | U.S. explodes first underwater atomic bomb at Bikini Atoll. | Ref: 10 |
| Jul 25 | US detonates the first underwater A-bomb at Bikini Atoll in the Pacific (5th atomic explosion). | Ref: 5 |
| Aug 01 | The McMahon Act in the U.S. establishes the Atomic Energy Commission. (XDG, p 4A, 8/1/2000) | Ref: 83 |
| Dec 15 | France brings operation of the first nuclear reactor. | Ref: 4 |
- 1947
| Apr 09 | Atomic Energy Commission formed. | Ref: 5 |
- 1948
| Apr 14 | US performs atmospheric nuclear test at Enwetak. | Ref: 5 |
| Apr 30 | US performs atmospheric nuclear test at Enwetak. | Ref: 5 |
| May 14 | US performs atmospheric nuclear test at Enwetak. | Ref: 5 |
| Dec 15 | France brings operation of the first nuclear reactor. | Ref: 2 |
- 1949
| Mar 19 | The American Museum of Atomic Energy opens in Oak Ridge, TN. | Ref: 4 |
| Mar 31 | Winston Churchill declares that the A-bomb was the only thing that kept the Soviet Union from taking over Europe. | Ref: 2 |
| Aug 20 | Soviets detonate their first Atom bomb. | Ref: 87 |
| Aug 29 | Russia explodes its first atomic bomb at a test site at Semipalatinsk in Kazakhstan. | Ref: 5 |
| Sep 22 | The Soviet Union exploded its first atomic bomb. | Ref: 70 |
| Sep 23 | President Truman announces evidence of USSR's 1st nuclear device detonation. | Ref: 5 |
| Oct 07 | USAF officials reported immediate availability of atomic bombs if use is ordered. | Ref: 50 |
| Nov 29 | The United States announces it will conduct atomic tests at Eniwetok Atoll in the Pacific. | Ref: 2 |
- 1950
| Jan 31 | U.S. President Harry S. Truman publicly announces his decision to support the development of the hydrogen bomb. | Ref: 3 |
| Feb 12 | Albert Einstein warns against hydrogen bomb. | Ref: 5 |
| Feb 13 | World's first nuclear accident: B-36 bomber en route from Alaska to TX drops bomb into Pacific. | Ref: 10 |
| Mar 01 | In London, Klaus Fuchs, the German-born physicist who helped build the first two U.S. atomic bombs, is convicted of passing atomic secrets to the Soviet Union. | Ref: 3 |
| Mar 08 | Marshall Voroshilov of USSR announces they developed atomic bomb. | Ref: 5 |
- 1951
| Jan 27 | US begins 126 nuclear tests at Nevada Test Site. | Ref: 5 |
| Jan 27 | An era of atomic testing in the Nevada desert began as an Air Force plane dropped a one-kiloton bomb on Frenchman Flats. | Ref: 70 |
| Jan 28 | US performs nuclear test at Nevada Test Site. | Ref: 5 |
| Feb 01 | Third A-bomb tests are completed in the desert of Nevada. | Ref: 2 |
| Feb 01 | First telecast of atomic explosion US nuclear test at Nevada Test Site. | Ref: 5 |
| Feb 02 | US performs nuclear test at Nevada Test Site. | Ref: 5 |
| Feb 06 | Radio commentator Paul Harvey arrested for trying to sneak into the Argonne National Laboratory, Chicago IL to demonstrate lax security. | Ref: 5 |
| Feb 06 | US performs nuclear test at Nevada Test Site Argonne Atomic Lab (Illinois), to demonstrate lax in security. | Ref: 5 |
| Feb 22 | The Atomic Energy Commission discloses information about the first atom-powered airplane. | Ref: 2 |
| Mar 25 | E Purcell & EM Ewen detect 21-cm radiation at Harvard physics lab. | Ref: 5 |
| Apr 07 | US performs atmospheric nuclear test at Enwetak. | Ref: 5 |
| Apr 20 | US performs atmospheric nuclear test at Enwetak Atoll. | Ref: 5 |
| May 08 | US performs atmospheric nuclear test at Enwetak | Ref: 2 |
| May 12 | First H Bomb test, on Enewetak Atoll. | Ref: 5 |
| May 18 | US General Collins predicts use of atom bomb in Korea. | Ref: 5 |
| May 24 | US performs nuclear test at Enwetak (atmospheric tests). | Ref: 5 |
| Nov 01 | First atomic explosion witnessed by troops, NM. | Ref: 5 |
| Nov 17 | Britain reports development of the world's first nuclear-powered heating system. | Ref: 2 |
| Nov 29 | 1st underground atomic explosion, Frenchman Flat, Nevada. | Ref: 5 |
| Dec 20 | EBR-I (Experimental Breeder Reactor-I) ushered in a new era in nuclear history when it became the first reactor to generate useable amounts of electricity from nuclear energy. It accomplished this feat by lighting four light bulbs this day at the National Reactor Testing Station of Argonne National Laboratory, Butte County, Idaho. EBR-I was registered as a National Historic Landmark in 1966. | Ref: 4 |
- 1952
| Feb 26 | Prime Minister Winston Churchill announced that Britain had developed its own atomic bomb. | Ref: 5 |
| Apr 01 | US performs nuclear test at Nevada Test Site. | Ref: 5 |
| Apr 15 | US performs nuclear test at Nevada Test Site. | Ref: 5 |
| Apr 22 | First atomic explosion on network news, Nob NV. | Ref: 5 |
| Apr 23 | An atomic test conducted in Nevada became the first nuclear explosion shown on live network television. | Ref: 70 |
| May 01 | Marines take part in an atomic explosion training in NV. | Ref: 5 |
| Jun 14 | Keel laid for 1st nuclear powered submarine, the Nautilus | Ref: 5 |
| Oct 03 | The first British atomic bomb test | Ref: 62 |
| Nov 01 | As part of the Operation Ivy nuclear program, the United States successfully detonates "Mike," the world's first hydrogen bomb, on the Elugelab Atoll in the Eniwetok Proving Grounds in the Pacific Marshall Islands; nuclear fusion occurred for the first time on Earth. | Ref: 3 |
| Dec 02 | An employee error releases 1 million gallons of radioactive water into an experimental nuclear reactor. | Ref: 62 |
- 1953
| Jan 07 | President Harry Truman announced in his State of the Union address that the United States had developed a hydrogen bomb. | Ref: 70 |
| Mar 11 | An American B-47 accidentally drops a nuclear bomb on South Carolina, the bomb doesn't go off due to 6 safety catches. | Ref: 5 |
| Mar 17 | US performs nuclear test at Nevada Test Site. | Ref: 5 |
| Mar 24 | US performs nuclear test at Nevada Test Site. | Ref: 5 |
| Mar 30 | Einstein announces revised unified field theory. | Ref: 5 |
| May 19 | Nuclear explosion in Nevada (fall-out in St George UT). | Ref: 5 |
| May 25 | First atomic cannon electronically fired, Frenchman Flat NV. | Ref: 5 |
| Aug 12 | The Soviet Union conducted a secret test of its first hydrogen bomb. | Ref: 70 |
| Aug 20 | The Soviet Union publicly acknowledged it had tested a hydrogen bomb. | Ref: 5 |
| Aug 29 | USSR explodes its first hydrogen bomb. | Ref: 5 |
| Sep 05 | First privately operated atomic reactor-Raleigh NC. | Ref: 5 |
- 1954
| Jan 21 | The Nautilus, the first atomic-powered submarine, was launched in Groton, CT. First Lady Mamie Eisenhower christened the vessel with a bottle of champagne. We wonder if the Nautilus was ever used as an oil well-drilling submarine. | Ref: 4 |
| Feb 02 | President Eisenhower reports detonation of first H-bomb (done in 1952). | Ref: 5 |
| Feb 22 | U.S. is to install 60 Thor nuclear missiles in Britain. | Ref: 2 |
| Feb 28 | US performs atmospheric nuclear test at Bikini Island. | Ref: 5 |
| Mar 01 | US explodes 15 megaton hydrogen bomb at Bikini Atoll. | Ref: 5 |
| Mar 26 | The United States sets off an H-bomb blast in the Marshall Islands, the second in four weeks. | Ref: 2 |
| Apr 06 | US performs atmospheric nuclear test at Bikini Island. | Ref: 5 |
| Apr 25 | US performs atmospheric nuclear test at Bikini Island. | Ref: 5 |
| May 04 | US performs atmospheric nuclear test at Bikini Island. | Ref: 5 |
| May 13 | US performs atmospheric nuclear test at Enwetak. | Ref: 5 |
| Jun 14 | Americans take part in the first nation-wide civil defense test against atomic attack. | Ref: 2 |
| Jun 27 | First atomic power station opens (Obninsk, near Moscow, Russia). | Ref: 5 |
| Jun 29 | The Atomic Energy Commission voted against reinstating Dr. J. Robert Oppenheimer's access to classified information. | Ref: 5 |
| Sep 21 | Nuclear submarine "Nautilus" is commissioned. | Ref: 5 |
| Sep 30 | The first atomic-powered submarine, the USS Nautilus, is commissioned in Groton, Connecticut. | Ref: 2 |
- 1955
| Jan 07 | The first atomic submarine, the U.S.S. Nautilus, sets sail | Ref: 62 |
| Jan 17 | Submarine Nautilus begins 1st nuclear-powered test voyage. | Ref: 5 |
| Feb 17 | Britain announces its ability to make hydrogen bombs. | Ref: 2 |
| Mar 16 | President Eisenhower upheld the use of atomic weapons in case of war. | Ref: 5 |
| Apr 06 | US performs nuclear test at Nevada Test Site. | Ref: 5 |
| Apr 09 | US performs nuclear test at Nevada Test Site. | Ref: 5 |
| Apr 15 | US performs nuclear test at Nevada Test Site. | Ref: 5 |
| May 05 | US performs nuclear test at Nevada test Site. | Ref: 5 |
| May 14 | US performs nuclear test in Pacific Ocean. | Ref: 5 |
| May 15 | US performs nuclear test at Nevada Test Site. | Ref: 5 |
| Jul 17 | Arco, Idaho becomes first US city lit by nuclear power. | Ref: 5 |
| Jul 18 | First electric power generated from atomic energy sold commercially. | Ref: 5 |
| Aug 08 | Geneva conference held to discuss peaceful uses of atomic energy. | Ref: 5 |
| Aug 16 | Fiat Motors orders 1st private atomic reactor. | Ref: 5 |
- 1956
| Mar 20 | USSR performs nuclear test. | Ref: 5 |
| Mar 30 | USSR performs nuclear test. | Ref: 5 |
| May 04 | US performs atmospheric nuclear test at Enwetak. | Ref: 5 |
| May 16 | Great Britain performs nuclear Test at Monte Bello Is Australia. | Ref: 5 |
| May 20 | Atomic fusion (thermonuclear) bomb dropped from plane-Bikini Atoll. | Ref: 5 |
| May 21 | The United States exploded the first airborne hydrogen bomb over Bikini Atoll in the Pacific. | Ref: 70 |
| May 27 | US performs nuclear test at Enwetak (atmospheric tests). | Ref: 5 |
| May 30 | US performs nuclear test at Enwetak (atmospheric tests). | Ref: 5 |
| Jun 28 | First atomic reactor built for private research operates Chicago Ill. | Ref: 5 |
| Aug 20 | First nuclear power generated in Britain at Calder Hall power station, Cumbria. | Ref: 10 |
| Oct 02 | First atomic power clock exhibited-NYC. | Ref: 5 |
| Oct 17 | The nuclear power station Calder Hall is opened in Britain. Calder Hall is the first nuclear station to feed an appreciable amount of power into a civilian network. | Ref: 2 |
| Oct 26 | UN's International Atomic Energy Agency statute approved. | Ref: 5 |
- 1957
| Jan 19 | USSR performs atmospheric nuclear test. | Ref: 5 |
| Mar 08 | USSR performs atmospheric nuclear test. | Ref: 5 |
| Mar 15 | Britain becomes the third nation to explode a nuclear bomb. | Ref: 5 |
| Apr 03 | USSR performs atmospheric nuclear test. | Ref: 5 |
| Apr 06 | USSR performs nuclear test (atmospheric tests). | Ref: 5 |
| Apr 10 | USSR performs atmospheric nuclear test. | Ref: 5 |
| Apr 12 | USSR performs atmospheric nuclear test. | Ref: 5 |
| Apr 16 | USSR performs atmospheric nuclear test. | Ref: 5 |
| Apr 25 | First experimental sodium nuclear reactor operated. | Ref: 5 |
| Apr 29 | First military nuclear power plant dedicated, Fort Belvoir Va. | Ref: 5 |
| May 15 | First British H-bomb explosion (over Christmas Island). | Ref: 5 |
| May 28 | US performs nuclear test at Nevada Test Site. | Ref: 5 |
| May 31 | Great Britain performs nuclear test at Christmas Island (atmospheric). | Ref: 5 |
| Jul 19 | First rocket with nuclear warhead fired, Yucca Flat, NV. | Ref: 5 |
| Jul 29 | The International Atomic Energy Agency established by the UN. | Ref: 5 |
| Sep 19 | The United States conducted its first underground nuclear test, in the NV desert. | Ref: 70 |
| Oct 07 | A fire in the Windscale plutonium production reactor (later called Sellafield) north of Liverpool, England, spreads radioactive iodine and polonium through the countryside and into the Irish Sea. Livestock in the immediate area were destroyed, along with 500,000 gallons of milk. At least 30, and possibly as many as 1,000, cancer deaths were subsequently linked to the accident. | Ref: 2 |
| Dec 02 | First US full-scale atomic electric power plant-power generated, Shippingport PA. | Ref: 5 |
| Dec 18 | Shippingport Atomic Power Station, PA was the first commercial central electric-generating station in the United States to use nuclear energy. It started producing juice this day, feeding electricity into the grid for the Pittsburgh area. On December 2, 1977, the first U.S. light water breeder reactor went to full power at Shippingport. (The power station was taken out of service October 1, 1982.) | Ref: 4 |
| Dec 28 | USSR performs atmospheric nuclear test. | Ref: 5 |
- 1958
| Jan 13 | 9,000 scientists of 43 nations petition UN for nuclear test ban. | Ref: 5 |
| Jan 21 | The Soviet Union calls for a ban on nuclear arms in Baghdad Pact countries. | Ref: 2 |
| Jan 24 | After warming to 100,000,000ş, 2 light atoms are bashed together to create a heavier atom, resulting in 1st man-made nuclear fusion. | Ref: 5 |
| Jan 28 | Construction began on first private thorium-uranium nuclear reactor. | Ref: 5 |
| Feb 23 | USSR performs nuclear test at Novaya Zemlya USSR. | Ref: 5 |
| Feb 27 | USSR performs nuclear test at Novaya Zemlya USSR. | Ref: 5 |
| Mar 11 | H-Bomb accidentally dropped on Mars Bluff, South Carolina (but did not explode, since there still *was* a South Carolina) | Ref: 62 |
| Mar 14 | US performs nuclear test at Nevada Test Site. | Ref: 5 |
| Mar 14 | USSR performs atmospheric nuclear test. | Ref: 5 |
| Mar 15 | USSR performs atmospheric nuclear test. | Ref: 5 |
| Mar 21 | USSR performs atmospheric nuclear test. | Ref: 5 |
| Mar 22 | USSR performs nuclear test at Novaya Zemlya USSR. | Ref: 5 |
| Mar 25 | West German parliament desires German atomic weapons. | Ref: 5 |
| Mar 31 | US Navy forms atomic sub division. | Ref: 5 |
| Mar 31 | USSR suspends nuclear weapons tests, & urges US & Britain to do same. | Ref: 5 |
| Apr 04 | First march against nuclear weapons (Aldermaston England). | Ref: 5 |
| Apr 28 | Great Britain performs atmospheric nuclear test at Christmas Island. | Ref: 5 |
| May 05 | US performs atmospheric nuclear test at Enwetak. | Ref: 5 |
| May 11 | US performs atmospheric nuclear test at Bikini Island (Enwetak). | Ref: 5 |
| May 12 | US performs atmospheric nuclear test at Enwetak. | Ref: 5 |
| May 20 | US performs nuclear test at Enwetak (atmospheric tests). | Ref: 5 |
| May 21 | US performs nuclear test at Bikini Island (atmospheric tests). | Ref: 5 |
| May 26 | US performs nuclear test at Enwetak (atmospheric tests). | Ref: 5 |
| May 30 | US performs nuclear test at Enwetak (atmospheric tests). | Ref: 5 |
| May 31 | US performs nuclear test at Bikini Island (atmospheric tests). | Ref: 5 |
| Aug 03 | The nuclear-powered submarine Nautilus became the first vessel to cross the North Pole underwater. | Ref: 70 |
- 1959
| May 24 | First house with built-in bomb shelter exhibited (Pleasant Hills PA). | Ref: 5 |
| Jul 14 | First atomic powered cruiser, the Long Beach, Quincy Mass. | Ref: 5 |
| Jul 21 | First atomic powered merchant ship, Savannah, christened, Camden NJ. | Ref: 5 |
- 1960
| Feb 13 | France performs first nuclear test at Reggane Proving Grounds Algeria. | Ref: 5 |
| Mar 10 | USSR agrees to stop nuclear testing. | Ref: 5 |
| Mar 25 | First guided missile launched from nuclear powered sub (Halibut). | Ref: 5 |
| Apr 01 | France performs nuclear test at Reggane Proving Grounds Algeria. | Ref: 5 |
| Apr 13 | France becomes the 4th nuclear nation exploding an A-Bomb in Sahara. | Ref: 5 |
| May 17 | First atomic reactor system to be patented, JW Flora, Canoga Park CA. | Ref: 5 |
| Sep 24 | The USS "Enterprise," the first nuclear-powered aircraft carrier, was launched at Newport News, Virginia. | Ref: 5 |
| Nov 15 | The first submarine with nuclear missiles, USS George Washington, takes to sea from Charleston, South Carolina. | Ref: 2 |
| Nov 25 | First atomic reactor for research & development, Richland Wa. | Ref: 5 |
| Dec 27 | France performs nuclear test. | Ref: 5 |
| Dec 28 | France performs nuclear test. | Ref: 5 |
- 1961
| Feb 16 | China uses its 1st nuclear reactor. | Ref: 5 |
| Apr 25 | France performs nuclear test at Reggane Proving Grounds Algeria. | Ref: 5 |
| Sep 01 | USSR ends a moratorium on above-ground nuclear testing in central Asia when they detonate a nuclear explosion. | Ref: 5 |
| Sep 05 | Kennedy orders resumption of underground nuclear tests | Ref: 62 |
| Oct 28 | The Soviet Union tested a hydrogen bomb with a force estimated at 58 megatons. | Ref: 70 |
| Oct 30 | The Soviet Union tested a hydrogen bomb with a force estimated at 58 megatons. | Ref: 70 |
| Dec 03 | US performs nuclear test at Nevada Test Site. | Ref: 5 |
| Dec 10 | US performs nuclear test at Carlsbad NM (underground). | Ref: 5 |
| Dec 22 | US performs nuclear test at Nevada Test Site. | Ref: 5 |
- 1962
| Jan 09 | US performs nuclear test at Nevada Test Site. | Ref: 5 |
| Jan 18 | US performs nuclear test at Nevada Test Site. | Ref: 5 |
| Jan 30 | US performs nuclear test at Nevada Test Site. | Ref: 5 |
| Feb 02 | USSR performs nuclear test at Eastern Kazakhstan/Semipalitinsk USSR. | Ref: 5 |
| Feb 08 | US performs nuclear test at Nevada Test Site. | Ref: 5 |
| Feb 09 | US performs nuclear test at Nevada Test Site. | Ref: 5 |
| Feb 15 | US performs nuclear test at Nevada Test Site. | Ref: 5 |
| Feb 19 | US performs nuclear test at Nevada Test Site. | Ref: 5 |
| Feb 23 | US performs nuclear test at Nevada Test Site. | Ref: 5 |
| Feb 24 | US performs nuclear test at Nevada Test Site. | Ref: 5 |
| Mar 01 | US/British nuclear test experiment in Nevada. | Ref: 5 |
| Mar 02 | JFK announces US will resume above ground nuclear testing. | Ref: 5 |
| Mar 04 | AEC announces first atomic power plant in Antarctica in operation. | Ref: 5 |
| Mar 05 | US performs nuclear test at Nevada Test Site. | Ref: 5 |
| Mar 06 | US performs nuclear test at Nevada Test Site. | Ref: 5 |
| Mar 08 | US performs nuclear test at Nevada Test Site. | Ref: 5 |
| Apr 25 | US resumes above ground nuclear testing, at Christmas Island. | Ref: 5 |
| Apr 27 | US performs atmospheric nuclear test at Christmas Island. | Ref: 5 |
| May 01 | First French underground nuclear experiment in the Sahara at Ecker Algeria. | Ref: 5 |
| May 02 | US performs atmospheric nuclear test at Christmas Island. | Ref: 5 |
| May 04 | US performs atmospheric nuclear test at Christmas Island. | Ref: 5 |
| May 06 | US performs nuclear test at Pacific Ocean. | Ref: 5 |
| May 06 | The first nuclear warhead is fired from a Polaris submarine. | Ref: 2 |
| May 07 | US performs atmospheric nuclear test at Christmas Island. | Ref: 5 |
| May 09 | US performs atmospheric nuclear test at Christmas Island. | Ref: 5 |
| May 11 | US performs atmospheric nuclear test at Christmas Island. | Ref: 5 |
| May 12 | US performs atmospheric nuclear test at Christmas Island. | Ref: 5 |
| May 14 | US performs atmospheric nuclear test at Christmas Island. | Ref: 5 |
| May 19 | US performs nuclear test at Christmas Island (atmospheric). | Ref: 5 |
| May 25 | US performs nuclear test at Christmas Island (atmospheric). | Ref: 5 |
| Dec 04 | US performs nuclear test at Nevada Test Site. | Ref: 5 |
| Dec 07 | Great Britain performs nuclear test at Nevada Test Site. | Ref: 5 |
| Dec 12 | US performs nuclear test at NV Test Site. | Ref: 5 |
| Dec 14 | US performs nuclear test at Nevada Test Site. | Ref: 5 |
| Dec 18 | USSR performs nuclear test at Novaya Zemlya USSR. | Ref: 5 |
| Dec 22 | USSR performs nuclear test at Novaya Zemlya USSR. | Ref: 5 |
| Dec 24 | USSR performs nuclear test at Novaya Zemlya USSR. | Ref: 5 |
| Dec 25 | USSR performs nuclear test at Novaya Zemlya USSR. | Ref: 5 |
- 1963
| Jan 16 | Khrushchev claims to have a 100-megaton nuclear bomb. | Ref: 5 |
| Feb 08 | US performs nuclear test at Nevada Test Site. | Ref: 5 |
| Feb 20 | Moscow offers to allow on-site inspection of nuclear testing. | Ref: 2 |
| Feb 21 | US performs nuclear test at Nevada Test Site. | Ref: 5 |
| Mar 18 | France performs underground nuclear test at Ecker Algeria. | Ref: 5 |
| Mar 30 | France performs underground nuclear test at Ecker Algeria. | Ref: 5 |
| Apr 10 | US performs nuclear test at Nevada Test Site. | Ref: 5 |
| Apr 11 | US performs nuclear test at Nevada Test Site. | Ref: 5 |
| Apr 24 | US performs nuclear test at Nevada Test Site. | Ref: 5 |
| May 09 | US performs nuclear test at Nevada Test Site. | Ref: 5 |
| May 17 | US performs nuclear Test at Nevada Test Site. | Ref: 5 |
| Jul 25 | The US, Russia & England sign nuclear test ban treaty. | Ref: 5 |
| Aug 05 | The United States, Britain and the Soviet Union signed a treaty in Moscow banning nuclear tests in the atmosphere, space and underwater. | Ref: 5 |
| Sep 24 | The Senate ratifies a treaty with Britain and the Soviet Union limiting nuclear testing. (XDG, p 4A, 9/24/2000) | Ref: 83 |
| Oct 01 | The Nuclear Test Ban Treaty, signed by the US, Britain and USSR comes into effect | Ref: 62 |
| Oct 07 | President Kennedy signed the documents of ratification for a nuclear test ban treaty with Britain and the Soviet Union. | Ref: 70 |
| Oct 10 | Treaty banning atmospheric nuclear tests signed by US, UK, USSR. | Ref: 5 |
- 1964
| Mar 15 | USSR performs nuclear test at Eastern Kazakhstan/Semipalitinsk USSR. | Ref: 5 |
| Apr 29 | US performs nuclear test at Nevada Test Site. | Ref: 5 |
| May 15 | US performs nuclear test at Nevada Test Site. | Ref: 5 |
| May 16 | USSR performs nuclear Test at Eastern Kazakhstan/Semipalitinsk USSR. | Ref: 5 |
| May 21 | First nuclear-powered lighthouse begins operations (Chesapeake Bay). | Ref: 5 |
| Oct 16 | China's first atomic bomb was exploded, becoming the world's fifth nuclear power. | Ref: 70 |
| Dec 16 | US performs nuclear test at Pacific Ocean | Ref: 5 |
| Dec 18 | US performs nuclear test at Nevada Test Site. | Ref: 5 |
- 1965
| Jan 12 | At 10 58 am PST burn up a nuclear rocket in Nevada. | Ref: 5 |
| Jan 16 | USSR performs nuclear test at Eastern Kazakstan/Semipalatinsk USSR. | Ref: 5 |
| Feb 04 | US performs nuclear test at Nevada Test Site. | Ref: 5 |
| Feb 12 | Nuclear test at Pacific Ocean. | Ref: 5 |
| Feb 27 | France performs Underground nuclear test at Ecker Algeria. | Ref: 5 |
| Mar 03 | US performs nuclear test at Nevada Test Site. | Ref: 5 |
| Mar 03 | USSR performs nuclear test at Eastern Kazakhstan/Semipalitinsk USSR. | Ref: 5 |
| Apr 03 | First atomic powered spacecraft (SNAP) launched. | Ref: 5 |
| Apr 05 | US performs nuclear test at Nevada Test Site. | Ref: 5 |
| Apr 14 | US performs nuclear test at Nevada Test Site. | Ref: 5 |
| May 11 | USSR performs nuclear test at Eastern Kazakhstan/Semipalitinsk USSR. | Ref: 5 |
| May 14 | US performs nuclear test at Nevada Test Site. | Ref: 5 |
| May 14 | 2nd Chinese atom bomb explodes. | Ref: 5 |
| May 30 | France performs nuclear test at Ecker Algeria (Underground). | Ref: 5 |
- 1966
| Jan 13 | US performs nuclear test at Nevada Test Site. | Ref: 5 |
| Jan 17 | USAF B-52 carrying 4 unarmed hydrogen bombs crashes on Spanish coast at Palomares, 7 die. | Ref: 5 |
| Feb 13 | USSR performs nuclear test at Eastern Kazakhstan/Semipalitinsk USSR. | Ref: 5 |
| Feb 16 | France performs underground nuclear test at Ecker Algeria. | Ref: 5 |
| Feb 24 | US performs nuclear test at Nevada Test Site. | Ref: 5 |
| Mar 05 | US performs nuclear test at Nevada Test Site. | Ref: 5 |
| Mar 07 | US performs nuclear test at Nevada Test Site. | Ref: 5 |
| Mar 12 | US performs nuclear test at Nevada Test Site. | Ref: 5 |
| Mar 17 | A US midget submarine located a missing hydrogen bomb which had fallen from an American bomber into the Mediterranean off Spain. | Ref: 5 |
| Apr 04 | US performs nuclear test at Nevada Test Site. | Ref: 5 |
| Apr 07 | US recovers lost H-bomb from Mediterranean floor (whoops!). | Ref: 5 |
| Apr 22 | USSR performs underground nuclear test. | Ref: 5 |
| May 09 | China People's Republic performs nuclear test at Lop Nor People's Rebublic of China. | Ref: 5 |
| Oct 05 | A sodium cooling system malfunction causes a partial core meltdown at the Enrico Fermi demonstration breeder reactor near Detroit. Radiation is contained. | Ref: 2 |
| Dec 03 | US performs underground nuclear test at Hattiesburg MS. | Ref: 5 |
| Dec 08 | US & USSR sign treaty to prohibit nuclear weapons in outer space. | Ref: 5 |
| Dec 13 | US performs nuclear test at Nevada Test Site. | Ref: 5 |
| Dec 18 | USSR performs nuclear test at Eastern Kazakhstan/Semipalitinsk USSR. | Ref: 5 |
| Dec 20 | Brussels: Nuclear Planning Group established. | Ref: 5 |
| Dec 20 | US performs nuclear test at Nevada Test Site. | Ref: 5 |
| Dec 28 | China People's Republic performs nuclear test at Lop Nor People's Rebublic of China. | Ref: 5 |
- 1967
| Jan 18 | US performs nuclear test at Nevada Test Site. | Ref: 5 |
| Jan 26 | USSR performs nuclear test at Sary Shagan USSR. | Ref: 5 |
| Jan 27 | More than 60 nations signed a treaty banning the orbiting of nuclear weapons. | Ref: 17 |
| Feb 08 | US performs nuclear test at Nevada Test Site. | Ref: 5 |
| Feb 14 | Latin American nuclear free zone proposal drawn up. | Ref: 5 |
| Feb 18 | J. (Julius) Robert Oppenheimer physicist: Enrico Fermi Award for work in nuclear physics: designed & built first atomic bomb; dies. | Ref: 4 |
| Feb 26 | USSR performs nuclear test at Eastern Kazakhstan/Semipalitinsk USSR. | Ref: 5 |
| Mar 02 | US performs nuclear test at Nevada Test Site. | Ref: 5 |
| Mar 03 | US performs nuclear test at Nevada Test Site. | Ref: 5 |
| Mar 25 | USSR performs nuclear test at Eastern Kazakhstan/Semipalitinsk USSR. | Ref: 5 |
| Mar 29 | France launches its first nuclear submarine. | Ref: 2 |
| Apr 20 | USSR performs nuclear test at Eastern Kazakhstan/Semipalitinsk USSR. | Ref: 5 |
| Apr 27 | US performs nuclear test at Nevada Test Site. | Ref: 5 |
| May 10 | US performs nuclear test at Nevada Test Site. | Ref: 2 |
| May 19 | The Soviet Union ratified a treaty with the United States and Britain banning nuclear weapons from outer space. | Ref: 70 |
| May 26 | US performs nuclear test at Nevada Test Site. | Ref: 5 |
| May 28 | USSR performs nuclear test at Eastern Kazakhstan/Semipalitinsk USSR. | Ref: 5 |
| Jun 17 | China becomes world's 4th thermonuclear (H-bomb) power. | Ref: 5 |
| Nov 27 | Treaty banning military use of nuclear weapons in space, signed. | Ref: 5 |
| Dec 06 | USSR performs nuclear test at Sary Shagan USSR. | Ref: 5 |
| Dec 24 | China People's Republic performs nuclear test at Lop Nor People's Rebublic of China. | Ref: 5 |
- 1968
| Jan 18 | USSR performs nuclear test at Eastern Kazakstan/Semipalatinsk USSR. | Ref: 5 |
| Jan 21 | US B-52 bombers with nuclear bomb crashes in Greenland. | Ref: 5 |
| Jan 31 | US performs nuclear test at Nevada Test Site. | Ref: 5 |
| Feb 29 | US end regular flights with nuclear bombs. | Ref: 5 |
| Feb 29 | US performs nuclear test at Nevada Test Site. | Ref: 5 |
| Mar 12 | US performs nuclear test at Nevada Test Site. | Ref: 5 |
| Mar 14 | POM performs atmospheric nuclear test at Maralinga Australia. | Ref: 5 |
| Mar 25 | US performs nuclear test at Nevada Test Site. | Ref: 5 |
| Apr 10 | US performs nuclear test at Nevada Test Site. | Ref: 5 |
| Apr 18 | US performs nuclear test at Nevada Test Site. | Ref: 5 |
| Apr 24 | USSR performs nuclear test at Eastern Kazakhstan/Semipalitinsk USSR. | Ref: 5 |
| Apr 26 | The United States exploded beneath the NV desert a one-megaton nuclear device called "Boxcar." | Ref: 5 |
| May 17 | US performs nuclear Test at Nevada Test Site. | Ref: 5 |
| May 21 | USSR performs nuclear test (underground). | Ref: 5 |
| Jul 01 | The United States, Britain, the Soviet Union and 58 other nations signed the Nuclear Nonproliferation Treaty. | Ref: 70 |
| Aug 24 | France became the world's fifth thermonuclear power as it exploded a hydrogen bomb in the South Pacific. | Ref: 70 |
| Dec 12 | US performs nuclear test at NV Test Site. | Ref: 5 |
| Dec 18 | USSR performs nuclear test at Eastern Kazakhstan/Semipalitinsk USSR. | Ref: 5 |
| Dec 27 | China People's Republic performs nuclear test at Lop Nor People's Rebublic of China. | Ref: 5 |
| Dec 28 | China People's Republic performs nuclear test at Lop Nor People's Rebublic of China. | Ref: 5 |
- 1969
| Jan 15 | Nuclear test at Pacific Ocean. | Ref: 5 |
| Mar 07 | USSR performs nuclear test at Eastern Kazakhstan/Semipalitinsk USSR. | Ref: 5 |
| Mar 21 | US performs nuclear test at Nevada Test Site. | Ref: 5 |
| Mar 26 | Nuclear reactor Dodewaard Netherlands goes into use. | Ref: 5 |
| May 11 | 100 pounds of plutonium catches fire at Rocky Flats, Colorado | Ref: 62 |
| May 16 | USSR performs nuclear Test at Eastern Kazakhstan/Semipalitinsk USSR. | Ref: 5 |
| Oct 17 | A fuel loading error at the Saint-Laurent reactor in France leads to a partial meltdown | Ref: 62 |
| Dec 05 | US performs nuclear test at Nevada Test Site. | Ref: 5 |
| Dec 06 | USSR performs nuclear test. | Ref: 5 |
| Dec 18 | US performs nuclear test at Nevada Test Site. | Ref: 5 |
| Dec 28 | USSR performs nuclear test at Eastern Kazakhstan/Semipalitinsk USSR. | Ref: 5 |
| Dec 30 | USSR performs nuclear test at Eastern Kazakhstan/Semipalitinsk USSR. | Ref: 5 |
- 1970
| Jan 23 | US performs nuclear test at Nevada Test Site. | Ref: 5 |
| Jan 29 | USSR performs nuclear test at Eastern Kazakstan/Semipalatinsk USSR. | Ref: 5 |
| Feb 04 | US performs nuclear test at Nevada Test Site. | Ref: 5 |
| Feb 05 | US performs nuclear test at Nevada Test Site. | Ref: 5 |
| Mar 05 | A nuclear non-proliferation treaty went into effect after 43 nations ratified it. | Ref: 5 |
| Mar 23 | US performs nuclear test at Nevada Test Site. | Ref: 5 |
| Mar 26 | 500th nuclear explosion announced by the US since 1945. | Ref: 5 |
| Mar 27 | USSR performs nuclear test at Eastern Kazakhstan/Semipalitinsk USSR. | Ref: 5 |
| May 12 | US performs nuclear test at Nevada Test Site. | Ref: 5 |
| May 15 | France performs nuclear test at Muruora Island. | Ref: 5 |
| May 21 | USSR performs nuclear test at Novaya Zemlya USSR. | Ref: 5 |
| May 22 | France performs nuclear test at Muruora Island. | Ref: 5 |
| May 23 | USSR performs nuclear test (underground). | Ref: 5 |
| May 27 | USSR performs nuclear test at Eastern Kazakhstan/Semipalitinsk USSR. | Ref: 5 |
| May 29 | USSR performs nuclear test (underground). | Ref: 5 |
| Dec 03 | US performs nuclear test at Nevada Test Site. | Ref: 5 |
| Dec 12 | USSR performs underground nuclear test. | Ref: 5 |
| Dec 16 | US performs nuclear test at Nevada Test Site | Ref: 5 |
| Dec 17 | USSR performs nuclear test at Eastern Kazakhstan/Semipalitinsk USSR. | Ref: 5 |
| Dec 17 | US performs nuclear test at NV Test Site. | Ref: 5 |
| Dec 18 | An atomic leak in Nevada forces hundreds of citizens to flee the test site. | Ref: 2 |
| Dec 18 | US performs nuclear test at Nevada Test Site. | Ref: 5 |
| Dec 23 | USSR performs nuclear test. | Ref: 5 |
- 1971
| Feb 11 | US, UK, USSR, others sign Seabed Treaty outlawing nuclear weapons. | Ref: 5 |
| Mar 22 | USSR performs nuclear test at Eastern Kazakhstan/Semipalitinsk USSR. | Ref: 5 |
| Mar 23 | USSR performs underground nuclear test. | Ref: 5 |
| Apr 25 | USSR performs nuclear test at Eastern Kazakhstan/Semipalitinsk USSR. | Ref: 5 |
| Apr 29 | US performs nuclear test at Nevada Test Site. | Ref: 5 |
| May 25 | USSR performs nuclear test at Eastern Kazakhstan/Semipalitinsk USSR. | Ref: 5 |
| Nov 19 | More than 50,000 gallons of radioactive waste water was accidentally released into the Mississippi River when waste storage overflows at Monticello, Minn. Reactor | Ref: 62 |
| Dec 14 | US performs nuclear test at Nevada Test Site. | Ref: 5 |
| Dec 15 | USSR performs nuclear test at Eastern Kazakhstan/Semipalitinsk USSR. | Ref: 5 |
| Dec 22 | USSR performs underground nuclear test. | Ref: 5 |
| Dec 30 | USSR performs nuclear test at Eastern Kazakhstan/Semipalitinsk USSR. | Ref: 5 |
- 1972
| Jan 01 | People's Republic of China performs nuclear test at Lop Nor People's Rebulic of China. | Ref: 5 |
| Feb 03 | US performs nuclear test at Nevada Test Site. | Ref: 5 |
| Feb 10 | USSR performs nuclear test at Eastern Kazakhstan/Semipalitinsk USSR. | Ref: 5 |
| Mar 10 | USSR performs nuclear test at Eastern Kazakhstan/Semipalitinsk USSR. | Ref: 5 |
| Mar 18 | People's Rebublic of China performs nuclear test at Lop Nor People's Rebublic of China. | Ref: 5 |
| Mar 28 | USSR performs nuclear test at Eastern Kazakhstan/Semipalitinsk USSR. | Ref: 5 |
| Mar 30 | US performs nuclear test at Nevada Test Site. | Ref: 5 |
| Apr 11 | USSR performs underground nuclear test. | Ref: 5 |
| Apr 19 | US performs nuclear test at Nevada Test Site. | Ref: 5 |
| May 02 | US performs nuclear test at NV Test Site. | Ref: 5 |
| May 10 | US performs nuclear test at Nevada Test Site. | Ref: 5 |
| May 11 | US performs nuclear test at Nevada Test Site. | Ref: 5 |
| May 19 | US performs nuclear test at Nevada Test Site. | Ref: 5 |
| May 22 | The first US president to visit Moscow did so on this day. President Richard Nixon met with Soviet leader Leonid Brezhnev where they signed the SALT I arms limitation treaty. | Ref: 4 |
| May 24 | US performs nuclear test at Nevada Test Site. | Ref: 5 |
| May 25 | US performs nuclear test at Nevada Test Site. | Ref: 5 |
| May 26 | Nixon & Brezhnev signs SALT accord. | Ref: 5 |
| May 26 | US performs nuclear test at Nevada Test Site. | Ref: 5 |
| May 27 | President Richard M. Nixon and Soviet Communist Party chief Leonid Brezhnev sign an arms reduction agreement. | Ref: 2 |
| Dec 10 | USSR performs nuclear test at Eastern Kazakhstan/Semipalitinsk USSR. | Ref: 5 |
| Dec 28 | USSR performs nuclear test at Eastern Kazakhstan/Semipalitinsk USSR. | Ref: 5 |
- 1973
| Mar 08 | US performs nuclear test at Nevada Test Site. | Ref: 5 |
| Mar 23 | US performs nuclear test at Nevada Test Site. | Ref: 5 |
| Apr 19 | USSR performs nuclear test at Eastern Kazakhstan/Semipalitinsk USSR. | Ref: 5 |
| Apr 25 | US performs nuclear test at Nevada Test Site. | Ref: 5 |
| Apr 26 | US performs nuclear test at Nevada Test Site. | Ref: 5 |
| May 17 | US performs 3 nuclear tests at Rifle CO. | Ref: 5 |
- 1974
| Jan 30 | USSR performs nuclear test at Eastern Kazakstan/Semipalatinsk USSR. | Ref: 5 |
| Feb 27 | US performs nuclear test at Nevada Test Site. | Ref: 5 |
| Apr 16 | USSR performs nuclear test at Eastern Kazakhstan/Semipalitinsk USSR. | Ref: 5 |
| Apr 23 | USSR performs nuclear test at Sary Shagan USSR. | Ref: 5 |
| May 16 | USSR performs nuclear Test at Eastern Kazakhstan/Semipalitinsk USSR. | Ref: 5 |
| May 18 | India becomes sixth nation to explode an atomic bomb. | Ref: 2 |
| May 22 | US performs nuclear test at Nevada Test Site. | Ref: 5 |
| May 23 | Great Britain performs nuclear test at Nevada Test Site. | Ref: 5 |
| May 31 | USSR performs nuclear test at Eastern Kazakhstan/Semipalitinsk USSR. | Ref: 5 |
| Nov 13 | Karen Silkwood, a technician and union activist at the Kerr-McGee Cimarron plutonium plant near Crescent, Okla., is killed in a car crash under suspicious circumstances. | Ref: 70 |
| Dec 16 | US performs nuclear test at Nevada Test Site | Ref: 5 |
| Dec 16 | USSR performs nuclear test at Eastern Kazakhstan/Semipalitinsk USSR | Ref: 5 |
| Dec 27 | USSR performs nuclear test at Eastern Kazakhstan/Semipalitinsk USSR. | Ref: 5 |
| Dec 28 | USSR performs nuclear test at Eastern Kazakhstan/Semipalitinsk USSR. | Ref: 5 |
- 1975
| Feb 06 | US performs nuclear test at Nevada Test Site. | Ref: 5 |
| Feb 20 | USSR performs nuclear test at Eastern Kazakhstan/Semipalitinsk USSR. | Ref: 5 |
| Feb 28 | US performs nuclear test at Nevada Test Site. | Ref: 5 |
| Mar 07 | US performs nuclear test at Nevada Test Site. | Ref: 5 |
| Mar 11 | USSR performs nuclear test at Eastern Kazakhstan/Semipalitinsk USSR. | Ref: 5 |
| Apr 24 | US performs nuclear test at Nevada Test Site. | Ref: 5 |
| Apr 25 | USSR performs underground nuclear test. | Ref: 5 |
| Apr 27 | USSR performs nuclear test at Eastern Kazakhstan/Semipalitinsk USSR. | Ref: 5 |
| May 14 | US performs nuclear test at Nevada Test Site. | Ref: 5 |
| Dec 13 | USSR performs nuclear test at Eastern Kazakhstan/Semipalitinsk USSR. | Ref: 5 |
- 1976
| Jan 03 | US performs nuclear test at Nevada Test Site. | Ref: 5 |
| Jan 06 | China People's Republic performs nuclear test at Lop Nor People's Republic of China. | Ref: 5 |
| Jan 15 | USSR performs nuclear test at Eastern Kazakstan/Semipalatinsk USSR. | Ref: 5 |
| Feb 04 | US performs nuclear test at Nevada Test Site. | Ref: 5 |
| Feb 12 | US performs nuclear test at Nevada Test Site. | Ref: 5 |
| Feb 26 | US performs nuclear test at Nevada Test Site. | Ref: 5 |
| Mar 14 | US performs nuclear test at Nevada Test Site. | Ref: 5 |
| Mar 17 | US performs nuclear test at Nevada Test Site. | Ref: 5 |
| Apr 03 | France performs nuclear test at Muruora Island. | Ref: 5 |
| Apr 09 | US & Russia agreed on the size of nuclear tests for peaceful use. | Ref: 5 |
| Apr 21 | USSR performs nuclear test at Eastern Kazakhstan/Semipalitinsk USSR. | Ref: 5 |
| May 19 | USSR performs nuclear test at Eastern Kazakhstan/Semipalitinsk USSR. | Ref: 5 |
| May 20 | USSR performs nuclear test at Sary Shagan USSR. | Ref: 5 |
| Dec 08 | US performs nuclear test at Nevada Test Site. | Ref: 5 |
| Dec 21 | US performs nuclear test at Nevada Test Site. | Ref: 5 |
| Dec 28 | US performs nuclear test at Nevada Test Site. | Ref: 5 |
| Dec 30 | USSR performs nuclear test at Eastern Kazakhstan/Semipalitinsk USSR. | Ref: 5 |
- 1977
| Feb 16 | USSR performs nuclear test at Sary Shagan USSR. | Ref: 5 |
| Feb 19 | France performs nuclear test at Muruora Island. | Ref: 5 |
| Mar 19 | France performs nuclear test at Muruora Island. | Ref: 5 |
| Apr 05 | US performs nuclear test at Nevada Test Site. | Ref: 5 |
| Apr 25 | USSR performs nuclear test at Eastern Kazakhstan/Semipalitinsk USSR. | Ref: 5 |
| May 25 | US performs nuclear test at Nevada Test Site. | Ref: 5 |
| May 29 | USSR performs nuclear test at Eastern Kazakhstan/Semipalitinsk USSR. | Ref: 5 |
| Dec 17 | France performs nuclear test at Muruora Island. | Ref: 5 |
| Dec 26 | USSR performs nuclear test at Eastern Kazakhstan/Semipalitinsk USSR. | Ref: 5 |
- 1978
| Jan 13 | "Stop Nuclear Power" benefit, Arlington Theatre, Santa Barbara | Ref: 62 |
| Jan 24 | A nuclear-powered Soviet satellite (Cosmos 954) plunge through Earth's atmosphere and disintegrated, scattering radioactive debris over parts of northern Canada. | Ref: 17 |
| Feb 13 | US performs nuclear test at Nevada Test Site. | Ref: 5 |
| Feb 27 | France performs nuclear test at Muruora Island. | Ref: 5 |
| Mar 07 | Dutch 2nd Chamber votes against neutron bomb. | Ref: 5 |
| Mar 15 | People's Rebublic of China performs nuclear test at Lop Nor People's Rebublic of China. | Ref: 5 |
| Mar 16 | US performs nuclear test at Nevada Test Site. | Ref: 5 |
| Mar 19 | 50,000 demonstrate in Amsterdam against neutron bomb. | Ref: 5 |
| Mar 22 | France performs nuclear test. | Ref: 5 |
| Mar 23 | US performs nuclear test at Nevada Test Site. | Ref: 5 |
| Apr 07 | President Jimmy Carter defers production of the neutron bomb. | Ref: 5 |
| Apr 15 | Great Britain performs nuclear test. | Ref: 5 |
| Apr 23 | USSR performs nuclear test at Eastern Kazakhstan/Semipalitinsk USSR. | Ref: 5 |
| Apr 27 | Accident at nuclear reactor Willow Island, Charleston WV, kills 51. | Ref: 5 |
| May 29 | USSR performs nuclear test at Eastern Kazakhstan/Semipalitinsk USSR. | Ref: 5 |
| Jul 14 | Allen Ginsburg completes "Plutonian Ode," blocks trainload of fissionable material headed for Rockwell's nuclear bomb trigger factory, Colorado. | Ref: 5 |
| Dec 01 | US performs nuclear test at Nevada Test Site. | Ref: 5 |
| Dec 14 | USSR performs nuclear test at Eastern Kazakhstan/Semipalitinsk USSR. | Ref: 5 |
| Dec 14 | China People's Republic performs nuclear test at Lop Nor People's Rebublic of China. | Ref: 5 |
| Dec 18 | France performs nuclear test at Muruora Island. | Ref: 5 |
| Dec 18 | USSR performs underground nuclear test. | Ref: 5 |
| Dec 19 | France performs nuclear test. | Ref: 5 |
- 1979
| Jan 17 | USSR performs underground nuclear test. | Ref: 5 |
| Jan 24 | US performs nuclear test at Nevada Test Site. | Ref: 5 |
| Feb 01 | USSR performs nuclear test at Eastern Kazakhstan/Semipalitinsk USSR. | Ref: 5 |
| Feb 08 | US performs nuclear test at Nevada Test Site. | Ref: 5 |
| Feb 15 | US performs nuclear test at Nevada Test Site. | Ref: 5 |
| Feb 16 | USSR performs nuclear test at Eastern Kazakhstan/Semipalitinsk USSR. | Ref: 5 |
| Mar 09 | France performs nuclear test at Muruora Island. | Ref: 5 |
| Mar 26 | Judge Robert Warren was the first judge to issue a prior restraint to prevent the publication of workings of an H bomb in Progressive Magazine | Ref: 62 |
| Mar 28 | America's worst commercial nuclear accident occurred inside the Unit Two reactor at the Three Mile Island plant near Middletown, Pa. | Ref: 5 |
| May 06 | USSR performs nuclear test at Eastern Kazakhstan/Semipalitinsk US. | Ref: 5 |
| May 09 | US & USSR sign Salt 2 treaty, limiting nuclear weapons. | Ref: 5 |
| May 24 | USSR performs nuclear test at Eastern Kazakhstan/Semipalitinsk USSR. | Ref: 5 |
| Jun 18 | President Carter and Soviet President Leonid I. Brezhnev signed the SALT Two strategic arms limitation treaty in Vienna. | Ref: 70 |
| Aug 07 | The accidental release of enriched uranium at a top secret fuel plant near Erwin, Tenn results in 1000 people being exposed to some abnormal levels of radiation | Ref: 62 |
| Aug 08 | President Jimmy Carter and Leonid Brezhnev sign the Salt II pact to limit nuclear arms. | Ref: 2 |
| Sep 07 | 5 day MUSE concert against nuclear energy opens at MSG, NY. | Ref: 5 |
| Sep 23 | Jane Fonda & 200,000 attend anti-nuke rally in Battery Park, NYC. | Ref: 5 |
| Oct 29 | On the 50th anniversary of the great stock market crash, anti-nuclear protesters tried but failed to shut down the NY Stock Exchange. | Ref: 6 |
| Dec 02 | USSR performs nuclear test at Eastern Kazakhstan/Semipalitinsk USSR. | Ref: 5 |
| Dec 14 | US performs nuclear test at Nevada Test Site. | Ref: 5 |
| Dec 21 | USSR performs nuclear test at Eastern Kazakhstan/Semipalitinsk USSR. | Ref: 5 |
| Dec 23 | USSR performs nuclear test at Eastern Kazakhstan/Semipalitinsk USSR. | Ref: 5 |
- 1980
| Feb 23 | France performs nuclear test at Muruora Island. | Ref: 5 |
| Feb 28 | US performs nuclear test at Nevada Test Site. | Ref: 5 |
| Mar 03 | France performs nuclear test at Muruora Island. | Ref: 5 |
| Mar 08 | US performs nuclear test at Nevada Test Site. | Ref: 5 |
| Mar 23 | France performs nuclear test. | Ref: 5 |
| Apr 01 | France performs nuclear test. | Ref: 5 |
| Apr 03 | France performs nuclear test. | Ref: 5 |
| Apr 03 | US performs nuclear test at Nevada Test Site. | Ref: 5 |
| Apr 04 | USSR performs nuclear test at Eastern Kazakhstan/Semipalitinsk USSR. | Ref: 5 |
| Apr 16 | US performs nuclear test at Nevada Test Site. | Ref: 5 |
| Apr 25 | USSR performs nuclear test at Eastern Kazakhstan/Semipalitinsk USSR. | Ref: 5 |
| Apr 26 | Great Britain performs nuclear test at Nevada Test Site. | Ref: 5 |
| May 02 | US performs nuclear test at Nevada Test Site. | Ref: 5 |
| Dec 10 | USSR performs underground nuclear test. | Ref: 5 |
| Dec 14 | USSR performs nuclear test at Eastern Kazakhstan/Semipalitinsk USSR. | Ref: 5 |
| Dec 17 | Great Britain performs nuclear test at Nevada Test Site. | Ref: 5 |
- 1981
| Feb 11 | At least 8 workers exposed to radiation at Sequoyah 1, a TVA nuclear power plant | Ref: 62 |
| Feb 25 | US performs nuclear test at Nevada Test Site. | Ref: 5 |
| Mar 06 | France performs nuclear test at Muruora Island. | Ref: 5 |
| Mar 28 | France performs nuclear test. | Ref: 5 |
| Mar 29 | USSR performs nuclear test at Eastern Kazakhstan/Semipalitinsk USSR. | Ref: 5 |
| Apr 10 | France performs nuclear test. | Ref: 5 |
| Apr 22 | USSR performs nuclear test at Eastern Kazakhstan/Semipalitinsk USSR. | Ref: 5 |
| Apr 25 | Workers at nuclear power plant in Tsurga, Japan exposed to radioactive material during repairs | Ref: 62 |
| May 27 | USSR performs nuclear test at Eastern Kazakhstan/Semipalitinsk USSR. | Ref: 5 |
| May 29 | US performs nuclear test at Nevada Test Site. | Ref: 5 |
| Jun 07 | Israeli military planes destroyed a nuclear power plant in Iraq, a facility the Israelis charged could have been used to make nuclear weapons. | Ref: 5 |
| Nov 30 | The United States and the Soviet Union opened negotiations in Geneva aimed at reducing nuclear weapons in Europe. | Ref: 70 |
| Dec 03 | US performs nuclear test at Nevada Test Site. | Ref: 5 |
| Dec 05 | France performs nuclear test. | Ref: 5 |
| Dec 08 | France performs nuclear test. | Ref: 5 |
| Dec 24 | USSR performs nuclear test at Eastern Kazakhstan/Semipalitinsk USSR. | Ref: 5 |
| Dec 27 | USSR performs nuclear test at Eastern Kazakhstan/Semipalitinsk USSR. | Ref: 5 |
| Dec 28 | USSR performs nuclear test at Eastern Kazakhstan/Semipalitinsk USSR. | Ref: 5 |
- 1982
| Jan 28 | US performs nuclear test at Nevada Test Site. | Ref: 5 |
| Feb 04 | President Reagan announces a plan to eliminate all medium range nuclear missiles in Europe. (XDG, p 4A, 2/4/2002) | Ref: 83 |
| Feb 12 | US performs nuclear test at Nevada Test Site. | Ref: 5 |
| Feb 19 | USSR performs nuclear test at Eastern Kazakhstan/Semipalitinsk USSR. | Ref: 5 |
| Feb 27 | France performs nuclear test at Muruora Island. | Ref: 5 |
| Mar 20 | France performs nuclear test. | Ref: 5 |
| Apr 17 | US performs nuclear test at Nevada Test Site. | Ref: 5 |
| Apr 25 | Great Britain performs nuclear test at Nevada Test Site. | Ref: 5 |
| Apr 25 | USSR performs nuclear test at Eastern Kazakhstan/Semipalitinsk USSR. | Ref: 5 |
| May 07 | US performs nuclear test at Nevada Test Site. | Ref: 5 |
| May 29 | Pentagon plans first strategy to fight a nuclear war. | Ref: 5 |
| Jun 12 | A major political rally attracted the largest crowd ever to such an event in New York City’s Central Park. Entertainers Jackson Browne, James Taylor, Bruce Springsteen and Linda Ronstadt gathered before 750,000 to rally for the cause of nuclear disarmament. | Ref: 4 |
| Dec 05 | USSR performs nuclear test at Eastern Kazakhstan/Semipalitinsk USSR. | Ref: 5 |
| Dec 08 | Demanding an end to nuclear weapons, Norman Mayer, held the Washington Monument hostage. After 10 hrs, police kill him he had no explosives. | Ref: 5 |
| Dec 19 | Four bombs explode at South Africa's only nuclear power station in Johannesburg. | Ref: 2 |
| Dec 26 | USSR performs nuclear test at Eastern Kazakhstan/Semipalitinsk USSR. | Ref: 5 |
- 1983
| Feb 01 | USSR performs underground nuclear test. | Ref: 5 |
| Feb 17 | US performs nuclear test at Nevada Test Site. | Ref: 5 |
| Feb 24 | USSR performs underground nuclear test. | Ref: 5 |
| Mar 02 | USSR performs underground nuclear test. | Ref: 5 |
| Mar 08 | House Foreign Affairs Committee endorses nuclear weapons freeze with USSR. | Ref: 5 |
| Mar 26 | US performs nuclear test at Nevada Test Site. | Ref: 5 |
| Mar 30 | USSR performs nuclear test at Eastern Kazakhstan/Semipalitinsk USSR. | Ref: 5 |
| Apr 01 | Tens of thousands of anti-nuclear demonstrators linked arms in a 14-mile human chain spanning three defense installations in rural England, including the Greenham Common US Air Base. (XDG, p 4A, 4/01/2003) | Ref: 83 |
| Apr 12 | USSR performs nuclear test at Eastern Kazakhstan/Semipalitinsk USSR. | Ref: 5 |
| Apr 13 | US performs nuclear test at Nevada Test Site. | Ref: 5 |
| Apr 19 | France performs nuclear test. | Ref: 5 |
| Apr 22 | Great Britain performs nuclear test at Nevada Test Site. | Ref: 5 |
| Apr 25 | France performs nuclear test at Muruora Island. | Ref: 5 |
| May 03 | US bishops condemn nuclear weapons. | Ref: 5 |
| May 03 | Soviet leader Andropov decreases nuclear weapons in Europe. | Ref: 5 |
| May 04 | China People's Republic performs nuclear test at Lop Nor People's Rebublic of China. | Ref: 5 |
| May 05 | US performs nuclear test at Nevada Test Site. | Ref: 5 |
| May 25 | France performs nuclear test. | Ref: 5 |
| May 26 | US performs nuclear test at Nevada Test Site. | Ref: 5 |
| Nov 18 | Argentina announces its ability to produce enriched uranium for nuclear weapons. | Ref: 2 |
| Dec 03 | France performs nuclear test at Muruora Island. | Ref: 5 |
| Dec 07 | France performs nuclear test at Muruora Island. | Ref: 5 |
| Dec 09 | US performs nuclear test at Nevada Test Site. | Ref: 5 |
| Dec 26 | USSR performs nuclear test at Eastern Kazakhstan/Semipalitinsk USSR. | Ref: 5 |
- 1984
| Jan 31 | US performs nuclear test at Nevada Test Site. | Ref: 5 |
| Feb 19 | USSR performs nuclear test at Eastern Kazakhstan/Semipalitinsk USSR. | Ref: 5 |
| Mar 01 | USSR performs nuclear test at Eastern Kazakhstan/Semipalitinsk USSR. | Ref: 5 |
| Mar 29 | USSR performs nuclear test at Eastern Kazakhstan/Semipalitinsk USSR. | Ref: 5 |
| Mar 31 | US performs nuclear test at Nevada Test Site. | Ref: 5 |
| Apr 15 | USSR performs nuclear test at Eastern Kazakhstan/Semipalitinsk USSR. | Ref: 5 |
| Apr 25 | USSR performs nuclear test at Eastern Kazakhstan/Semipalitinsk USSR. | Ref: 5 |
| May 01 | Great Britain performs nuclear test at NV Test Site. | Ref: 5 |
| May 02 | US performs nuclear test at Nevada Test Site. | Ref: 5 |
| May 08 | France performs nuclear test at Muruora Island | Ref: 2 |
| May 12 | France performs nuclear test. | Ref: 5 |
| May 16 | US performs nuclear Test at Nevada Test Site. | Ref: 5 |
| May 31 | US performs nuclear test at Nevada Test Site. | Ref: 5 |
| Dec 01 | France performs nuclear test. | Ref: 5 |
| Dec 02 | USSR performs nuclear test at Eastern Kazakhstan/Semipalitinsk USSR. | Ref: 5 |
| Dec 06 | France performs nuclear test. | Ref: 5 |
| Dec 09 | Great Britain performs nuclear test at Nevada Test Site. | Ref: 5 |
| Dec 19 | China People's Republic performs nuclear test at Lop Nor People's Rebublic of China. | Ref: 5 |
| Dec 20 | US performs nuclear test at Nevada Test Site. | Ref: 5 |
| Dec 28 | USSR performs nuclear test at Eastern Kazakhstan/Semipalitinsk USSR. | Ref: 5 |
- 1985
| Feb 10 | USSR performs nuclear test at Eastern Kazakhstan/Semipalitinsk USSR. | Ref: 5 |
| Mar 01 | The Pentagon accepts the theory that an atomic war would block the sun, causing a "nuclear winter." | Ref: 2 |
| Mar 13 | Upon the death of Konstantin Chernenko, Mikhail Gorbachev becomes the new leader of the Soviet Union. He will oversee the dismantling of the Soviet nuclear arms stockpile and the end of the Soviet Union itself. | Ref: 2 |
| Mar 15 | US performs nuclear test at Nevada Test Site. | Ref: 5 |
| Mar 23 | US performs nuclear test at Nevada Test Site. | Ref: 5 |
| Apr 02 | US performs nuclear test at Nevada Test Site. | Ref: 5 |
| Apr 06 | US performs nuclear test at Nevada Test Site. | Ref: 5 |
| Apr 19 | USSR performs nuclear test at Eastern Kazakhstan/Semipalitinsk USSR. | Ref: 5 |
| Apr 30 | France performs nuclear test at Muruora Island. | Ref: 5 |
| May 02 | US performs nuclear test at Nevada Test Site. | Ref: 5 |
| May 08 | France performs nuclear test at Muruora Island. | Ref: 5 |
| Jun 09 | Oak Harbor nuclear power plant in Ohio loses its coolant | Ref: 62 |
| Dec 05 | Great Britain performs nuclear test. | Ref: 5 |
| Dec 28 | US performs nuclear test at Nevada Test Site. | Ref: 5 |
- 1986
| Apr 10 | US performs nuclear test at Nevada Test Site. | Ref: 5 |
| Apr 20 | US performs nuclear test at Nevada Test Site. | Ref: 5 |
| Apr 22 | US performs nuclear test at Nevada Test Site. | Ref: 5 |
| Apr 26 | France performs nuclear test. | Ref: 5 |
| Apr 26 | At 1:23 a.m. in Pripyat in the Ukraine, the Chernobyl atomic power station exploded. A three-hundred-square-mile area was evacuated in an attempt to protect over 100,000 residents of the area from radiation poisoning. 31 people died and unknown thousands were exposed as the radioactive material carried in the atmosphere spread throughout the world. | Ref: 4 |
| May 01 | The Tass News Agency reports the Chernobyl nuclear power plant accident. | Ref: 2 |
| May 06 | France performs nuclear test at Muruora Island. | Ref: 5 |
| May 21 | US performs nuclear test at Nevada Test Site. | Ref: 5 |
| May 27 | France performs nuclear test at Muruora Island. | Ref: 5 |
| May 30 | France performs nuclear test. | Ref: 5 |
| Jun 15 | Pravda announces high-level Chernobyl staff fired for stupidity. | Ref: 5 |
| Aug 22 | Kerr-McGee Corp. agreed to pay the estate of the late Karen Silkwood $1.38 million, settling a 10-year-old nuclear contamination lawsuit. | Ref: 70 |
| Oct 05 | London Sunday Times reports Israel is stocking nuclear arms. | Ref: 5 |
| Dec 06 | France performs nuclear test at Muruora Island. | Ref: 5 |
| Dec 10 | France performs nuclear test. | Ref: 5 |
- 1987
| Feb 11 | US performs nuclear test at Nevada Test Site. | Ref: 5 |
| Feb 26 | The Soviet Union resumes atomic bomb testing at Eastern Kazakhstan/Semipalitinsk after the US refuses to join them in a moratorium on testing | Ref: 5 |
| Mar 12 | USSR performs nuclear test at Eastern Kazakhstan/Semipalitinsk USSR. | Ref: 5 |
| Mar 18 | US performs nuclear test at Nevada Test Site. | Ref: 5 |
| Apr 03 | USSR performs nuclear test at Eastern Kazakhstan/Semipalitinsk USSR. | Ref: 5 |
| Apr 17 | USSR performs nuclear test at Eastern Kazakhstan/Semipalitinsk USSR. | Ref: 5 |
| Apr 18 | US performs atmospheric nuclear test at Maralinga Australia. | Ref: 5 |
| Apr 19 | USSR performs underground nuclear test. | Ref: 5 |
| May 05 | France performs nuclear test at Muruora Island. | Ref: 5 |
| May 06 | USSR performs nuclear test at Eastern Kazakhstan/Semipalitinsk USSR. | Ref: 5 |
| Dec 02 | US performs nuclear test at Nevada Test Site. | Ref: 5 |
| Dec 02 | 72-page hand manuscript by Albert Einstein revealing theory of relativity sold for record $1.16m. | Ref: 10 |
| Dec 08 | President Reagan and Soviet leader Mikhail S. Gorbachev signed a treaty calling for destruction of intermediate-range nuclear missiles. | Ref: 5 |
| Dec 13 | USSR performs nuclear test at Eastern Kazakhstan/Semipalitinsk USSR. | Ref: 5 |
| Dec 18 | USSR performs underground nuclear test. | Ref: 5 |
| Dec 27 | USSR performs nuclear test at Eastern Kazakhstan/Semipalitinsk USSR. | Ref: 5 |
| Dec 28 | USSR performs nuclear test at Eastern Kazakhstan/Semipalitinsk USSR. | Ref: 5 |
- 1988
| Feb 06 | USSR performs nuclear test at Eastern Kazakhstan/Semipalitinsk USSR. | Ref: 5 |
| Feb 15 | US performs nuclear test at Nevada Test Site. | Ref: 5 |
| Apr 03 | USSR performs nuclear test at Eastern Kazakhstan/Semipalitinsk USSR. | Ref: 5 |
| Apr 07 | US performs nuclear test at Nevada Test Site. | Ref: 5 |
| May 04 | USSR performs nuclear test at Eastern Kazakhstan/Semipalitinsk USSR. | Ref: 5 |
| May 07 | USSR performs nuclear test at Novaya Zemlya USSR. | Ref: 5 |
| May 11 | France performs nuclear test. | Ref: 5 |
| May 21 | US performs nuclear test at Nevada Test Site. | Ref: 5 |
| May 27 | Senate ratified a treaty eliminating medium-range nuclear missiles. | Ref: 5 |
| Dec 04 | USSR performs nuclear test at Novaya Zemlya USSR. | Ref: 5 |
| Dec 17 | USSR performs nuclear test at Eastern Kazakhstan/Semipalitinsk USSR. | Ref: 5 |
| Dec 28 | USSR performs nuclear test at Eastern Kazakhstan/Semipalitinsk USSR. | Ref: 5 |
- 1989
| Jan 22 | USSR performs nuclear test at Eastern Kazakstan/Semipalatinsk USSR. | Ref: 5 |
| Feb 10 | US performs nuclear test at Nevada Test Site. | Ref: 5 |
| Feb 17 | USSR performs nuclear test at Eastern Kazakhstan/Semipalitinsk USSR. | Ref: 5 |
| Feb 24 | US performs nuclear test at Nevada Test Site. | Ref: 5 |
| Mar 09 | US performs nuclear test at Nevada Test Site. | Ref: 5 |
| Apr 07 | A Soviet nuclear-powered submarine, the Komsomolets, catches fire and sinks in the Norwegian Sea, claiming 42 lives. | Ref: 5 |
| May 11 | France performs nuclear test at Muruora Island. | Ref: 5 |
| May 26 | US performs nuclear test at Nevada Test Site. | Ref: 5 |
| Dec 08 | Great Britain performs nuclear test. | Ref: 5 |
- 1990
| Mar 01 | The Seabrook NH nuclear power plant won federal permission to go on line after two decades of protests and legal struggles. | Ref: 70 |
| Mar 10 | US performs nuclear test at Nevada Test Site. | Ref: 5 |
| May 26 | China People's Republic performs nuclear test at Lop Nor People's Rebublic of China. | Ref: 5 |
- 1991
| Mar 08 | US performs nuclear test at Nevada Test Site. | Ref: 5 |
| May 07 | France performs nuclear test at Muruora Island. | Ref: 5 |
| May 18 | France performs nuclear test at Muruora Island. | Ref: 5 |
| Jul 13 | Soviet and American negotiators meeting in Washington wrangled over a treaty to reduce long-range nuclear missiles. | Ref: 6 |
| Jul 30 | President Bush and Soviet President Mikhail S. Gorbachev signed the Strategic Arms Reduction Treaty in Moscow. | Ref: 6 |
- 1992
| May 21 | China People's Republic performs nuclear test at Lop Nor People's Rebublic of China. | Ref: 5 |
| May 23 | The US and 4 former Soviet republics sign an agreement in Lisbon, Portugal to implement the START missle reduction program that had been agreed to by the Soviet Union before its dissolution. (XDG, p 4A, 5/23/2002) | Ref: 83 |
| Aug 03 | The US Senate votes to sharply restrict, and eventually end, US testing of nuclear weapons. (XDC, p 4A, 8/03/2002) | Ref: 83 |
- 1993
| Jan 03 | President George H.W. Bush and Russian President Boris Yeltsin signed a historic nuclear missile-reduction treaty in Moscow. | Ref: 70 |
| Sep 17 | President Clinton urges China to cancel an underground nuclear test, assuring Bejing it had nothing to fear from the world's other nuclear powers. (XDG, p 4A, 9/17/2003) | Ref: 83 |
- 1994
| Jan 02 | Dixy Lee Ray chairwoman (US Atomic Energy Commission), dies at 79. | Ref: 5 |
| Jan 03 | The White House promises a a government-wide effort to learn the extent of human radiation testing during the Cold War era. (XDG, p 4A, 1/03/2004) | Ref: 83 |
| Jan 10 | Ukraine says it will give up world's 3rd largest nuclear arsenal. | Ref: 5 |
| Jan 14 | President Clinton and Russian President Boris Yeltsin signed Kremlin accords to stop aiming missiles at any nation and to dismantle the nuclear arsenal of Ukraine. | Ref: 70 |
| May 31 | The United States announced it was no longer aiming long-range nuclear missiles at targets in the former Soviet Union. | Ref: 5 |
| Sep 03 | China and Russia proclaimed an end to any lingering hostilities, pledging they would no longer target nuclear missiles or use force against each other. | Ref: 70 |
- 1995
| May 15 | China People's Republic performs nuclear test at Lop Nor People's Rebublic of China | Ref: 5 |
| Nov 21 | France detonates a fourth underground nuclear blast at its test site in the South Pacific. (XDG, p 4A, 11/21/2000) | Ref: 83 |
- 1996
| Jan 27 | France performs nuclear test at Muruora Island. | Ref: 5 |
| Jan 28 | France sets off a sixth underground nuclear blast in the South Pacific, the last in a series of atomic tests that generate world wide protests. (XDG, p 4A, 1/28/2001) | Ref: 83 |
| Apr 11 | Forty-three African nations sign the African Nuclear Weapons Free Zone Treaty. | Ref: 2 |
| Apr 20 | Russia and the leaders of the world's seven richest democracies agreed in Moscow to end nuclear tests by the fall and pledged new steps to keep nuclear materials out of the wrong hands. | Ref: 6 |
| Jun 08 | China set off an underground nuclear test blast. | Ref: 6 |
| Sep 05 | France ended its three-year moratorium on nuclear tests, setting off an underground blast on a South Pacific atoll. | Ref: 6 |
| Sep 24 | The United States, represented by President Clinton, and the world's other major nuclear powers signed a treaty to end all testing and development of nuclear weapons. | Ref: 70 |
| Nov 27 | France performs nuclear test at Muruora Island. | Ref: 5 |
- 1997
| Dec 29 | Russia signs agreement to build a $3B nuclear power plant in China | Ref: 5 |
- 1998
| May 11 | India set off three underground atomic blasts, its first nuclear tests in 24 years. | Ref: 70 |
| May 12 | A day after India's first atomic test blasts in 24 years, neighboring Pakistan said it was ready to test a nuclear device itself. (XDG, p 4A, 5/12/2003) | Ref: 83 |
| May 28 | Pakistan matched India with five nuclear test blasts of its own, raising fears of a nuclear arms race. | Ref: 70 |
- 1999
| Jul 15 | The government acknowledged for the first time that thousands of workers were made sick while making nuclear weapons and announced a plan to compensate many of them. | Ref: 70 |
- 2000
| Mar 16 | Thomas Wilson Ferebee, the Enola Gay bombardier who dropped the atomic bomb on Hiroshima, dies in Windermere FL at age 81. (XDG, p 4A, 3/16/2001) | Ref: 83 |
| Apr 21 | The lower house of the Russian parliament overwhelmingly approved the Comprehensive Nuclear Test Ban Treaty, which would oblige Russia to end all nuclear test explosions. | Ref: 6 |
| May 23 | Two weeks before a US-Russia arms summit, presidential candidate George W. Bush said he would slash America's nuclear arsenal as part of a broad national security review that would call for a missile-defense system. | Ref: 6 |
| May 31 | President Clinton, visiting Portugal, tried to calm fears of a nuclear arms race that would leave Europe vulnerable by promising to share any new missile defense technology with U-S allies. | Ref: 5 |
| Jun 05 | President Clinton visited the former Soviet republic of Ukraine, the last stop in his weeklong European tour, where he dispensed $80 million in American aid to help entomb the Chernobyl nuclear power plant, scene of the world's worst nuclear accident. | Ref: 64 |
| Sep 30 | A major leak at a uranium-processing plant in northeastern Japan exposed dozens of people to radiation. | Ref: 6 |
- 2002
| Jan 11 | During a routine maintenance shutdown at the Beverley Uranium Mine, 340 miles north of Adelaide, Australia, intake pumps continued to operate allowing pressure to build, causing a pipe to split and spill 16,000 gallons of radioactive liquid around the plant. The plant is operated by Heathgate Resources, a unit of the American company General Atomics. There have been at least 24 incidents in the two years the plant has been operating. (NY Times, p A7, 1//21/2002) | |
| Feb 15 | President Bush approved Nevada's Yucca Mountain as the site for long-term disposal of thousands of tons of highly radioactive nuclear waste. | Ref: 70 |
| Jul 09 | The Senate voted to entomb thousands of tons of radioactive waste inside Yucca Mountain in the Nevada desert, rejecting the state's fervent protests. | Ref: 70 |
| Oct 16 | The White House announced that North Korea had disclosed it had a nuclear weapons program. | Ref: 70 |
| Dec 12 | North Korea clains to reactivate its nuclear facilities at Yongbyon that were frozen under the 1994 deal with the US. (WSJ, p A4, 7/22/2003) | Ref: 33 |
- 2003
| Feb 12 | The U.N. nuclear agency declared North Korea in violation of international treaties, sending the dispute to the Security Council. | Ref: 70 |
| Mar 06 | The US ratifies a treaty on cutting active US and Russian long-range nuclear warheads by two-thirds. (XDG, p 4A, 3/06/2004) | Ref: 83 |
| Sep 09 | Edward Teller, "father of the H-bomb", dies in Stanford CA at age 95. (WSJ, p A1, 9/11/2003) | Ref: 33 |
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Nuclear Power Chronology