80 Years Ago: The First Atomic Explosion, 16 July 1945
Washington, D.C., July 16, 2025 - Early in the morning of 16 July 1945, 80 years ago, the U.S. Manhattan Project staged the first test of a nuclear weapon in the New Mexican desert. It was the first trial of a plutonium implosion weapon—the same weapon type that devastated Nagasaki a few weeks later. The explosion on the ground produced radioactive fallout contaminating over 1,100 square miles of the state, with some debris spreading as far north as Canada.