Above, a photo of the mushroom cloud generated by Little Boy, the first nuclear weapon ever used on humans, at Hiroshima, Japan, in the final days of World War II, around 8 a.m. today in 1945. 

At top is a photo of the first atomic device, a plutonium bomb nicknamed Gadget, detonated in a test known as Trinity, at White Sands Proving Ground, aka White Sands Missile Range, New Mexico. The second photo shows the bomb's fireball at six-hundred feet in diameter 0.016 seconds after detonation, releasing energy roughly equal to 20 kilotons of TNT. The Trinity blast is considered the beginning of the nuclear age, today in 1945.

Photo of the mushroom cloud generated by China’s first nuclear bomb, named 59-6, after the year and month Russian premier Nikita Krushchev refused to share Russian nuclear technology. It was detonated yesterday, 1967. 

Shot of U.S. nuclear test Yeso, part of Operation Dominic, conducted on Christmas Island, aka Kiritimati, South Pacific, June 10, 1962. 

Photo of the nuclear test George, part of the Operation Greenhouse series, Eniwetok Atoll, today 1951.

Photo of the U.S. nuclear test Able. There were many Able tests, but this one was part of Operation Tumbler-Snapper, which took place at the Nevada Test Site, this month in 1952. The smoke trails you see around the blast were created by rockets, which were launched just before detonation, and were used to mark the progress of the bomb's shockwave.

Photo of the nuclear test codenamed Easy, part of the series Operation Ranger, detonated at Frenchman Flat, Nevada Test Site, February 1, 1951. This was the first nuclear blast shown on television—a news program secretly focused a camera on the desert from the top of a Las Vegas hotel and was able to broadcast a distant flash. 

Telling children to kiss their little rear ends goodbye in the event of a nuclear attack was considered too harsh, so instead these Los Angeles gradeschoolers are being taught how to survive the A-bomb by taking shelter under their desks. They’ve been told that a nuclear bomb “blows up houses and makes the earth wiggle.” The shot dates from 1950 and comes from the Los Angeles Public Library’s collection of mid-century Los Angeles Herald Express photos. 

In February 1960 France detonated this nuclear weapon, known as Gerboise Bleue, in the Algerian desert. In so doing the French defied the wishes of the United Nations and came under intense criticism from the Soviet Union and several African nations. The shot was their first of three in Algeria that year, with the goal of creating a compact nuclear warhead that could fit atop a missile. But it also happened to occur during the Algerian War and was clearly meant to terrify Algerians, who were fighting for independence. In 1999 France admitted it had exposed the local population to nuclear radiation and agreed to pay compensation.