The history of nuclear weapons chronicles the development of nuclear weapons. Nuclear weapons possess enormous destructive potential derived from nuclear fission or nuclear fusion reactions. Starting with scientific breakthroughs of the 1930s made by the United States, Canada and the United Kingdom during World War II in what was called the Manhattan Project to counter the assumed Nazi German atomic bomb project. In August 1945 two were dropped on Japan ending the Pacific War. An international team was dispatched to help work on the project. The Soviet Union started development shortly thereafter with their own atomic bomb project, and not long after that both countries developed even more powerful fusion weapons called "hydrogen bombs."
There have been (at least) four major false alarms, the most recent in 1995, that resulted in the activation of either the US's or Russia's nuclear attack early warning protocols.
Read more about History Of Nuclear Weapons: Physics and Politics in The 1930s, From Los Alamos To Hiroshima, Soviet Atomic Bomb Project, The First Thermonuclear Weapons, Deterrence and Brinkmanship, Weapons Improvement, Anti-nuclear, Initial Proliferation, Cold War, Cost, Second Nuclear Age
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