 It's a type of animal to which the normal rules of logic don't seem to apply. 
Above is a photo of the nuclear test Mohawk, part of a seventeen blast series designated Redwing. The 360 kiloton Mohawk took place on Enewetak or Eniwetok Atoll. The first few milliseconds of a nuclear blast tend to produce forms like the one seen here, a bulbous shape with vaporizing guy wires that resemble stubby legs. To us, these shapes look a bit like tardigrades, those microscopic life forms found everywhere on Earth from jungle to arctic to sea bottom, and which are so resilient and difficult to kill they can survive extreme high and low pressures, radiation, dehydration, starvation, and exposure to the vacuum of space.
Similarly, nuclear weapons seem able to survive anything, though their existence is proof of the folly of man. While we can certainly accept that we aren't an intelligent enough species to forgo the creation of armageddon causing weapons, the U.S. and Russia both have more than 5,000 nukes, an amount at which balance of power becomes meaningless. Weapon 4,999 is not the one that makes a nation secure. Nor is weapon 999. Military sources claim missile interception systems work at a rate of 80%, while arms control advocates say the real number is closer to 50%. In either case, in a full scale nuclear exchange hundreds of nukes would reach their targets.
 A thorn in the side of the world. 
The above photo shows the detonation of the Cactus nuclear device, which was set off today in 1958 on Enewetak Atoll, Marshall Islands, South Pacific, as part of Operation Hardtack I. Yes, there were so many nuclear tests during the ’50s and ’60s that quite a few occurred on the same day in different years. Instead of leaving a house behind Cactus left a crater 346 feet in diameter and forty feet deep. Which these days also could probably be made into an Airbnb.
 This Umbrella doesn't offer much in the way of protection. 
This photo shows the detonation of a U.S. nuclear device codenamed Umbrella, set off on Enewetak Atoll in the Marshall Islands as part of the Hardtack test series, and specifically designed to test radiation contamination on ships exposed to underwater nuclear blasts. The eight kiloton explosion threw a column of water 5,000 feet high, along with whatever unlucky fish, dolphins, and whales happened to be in the vicinity. Just more collateral damage in the ongoing arms race, and certainly not the last. The bomb went off today in 1958.
 The years of living dangerously. 
Operation Greenhouse took place on Enewetak Atoll at the Pacific Proving Grounds, with the aim of exploring methods for expanding the destructive capacity of nuclear weapons while reducing the amount of fissile material needed. There were four tests—above you see an image of the third of those, codenamed George. It occurred today (some sources say yesterday due to the time difference) in 1951.
 The light is the end of the tunnel. 
The Apache nuclear test, which was part of Operation Redwing, is one of the archetypal post-Hiroshima atomic images. We’ve even seen it described as beautiful. Based on pure aesthetics, perhaps that’s true. But of late, global events have reminded many people that these weapons are still the number one threat to human life. In fact, the current state of geopolitics makes the use of nuclear weapons inevitable—i.e., all the nations that have them, such as the U.S., Russia, China and others, routinely break international law, while those that don’t have them are routinely bullied and attacked. In such a two-tiered system, non-nuclear countries believe ultimate security can be derived from only one thing—the acquisition of nukes. It’s a recipe for global failure. The Apache nuclear test occurred at Enewetak Atoll in the South Pacific today in 1956.
 Careful now—the footing is truly treacherous.  
Above, two photos from today in 1955 of a superheated debris cloud over Enewetak Atoll in the Marshall Islands of the South Pacific. It was generated by the nuclear test George, which was part of Operation Greenhouse and was the first test of a boosted fission weapon. What is a boosted fission weapon? Well, it’s more advanced than the world-threatening weapons that came before it, but not as advanced as the world-threatening weapons that came after it. Or put another way, it was a completely redundant step on a ladder to nowhere.
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The headlines that mattered yesteryear.
1939—Batman Debuts
In Detective Comics #27, DC Comics publishes its second major superhero, Batman, who becomes one of the most popular comic book characters of all time, and then a popular camp television series starring Adam West, and lastly a multi-million dollar movie franchise starring Michael Keaton, then George Clooney, and finally Christian Bale. 1953—Crick and Watson Publish DNA Results
British scientists James D Watson and Francis Crick publish an article detailing their discovery of the existence and structure of deoxyribonucleic acid, or DNA, in Nature magazine. Their findings answer one of the oldest and most fundamental questions of biology, that of how living things reproduce themselves. 1967—First Space Program Casualty Occurs
Soviet cosmonaut Vladimir Komarov dies in Soyuz 1 when, during re-entry into Earth's atmosphere after more than ten successful orbits, the capsule's main parachute fails to deploy properly, and the backup chute becomes entangled in the first. The capsule's descent is slowed, but it still hits the ground at about 90 mph, at which point it bursts into flames. Komarov is the first human to die during a space mission. 1986—Otto Preminger Dies
Austro–Hungarian film director Otto Preminger, who directed such eternal classics as Laura, Anatomy of a Murder, Carmen Jones, The Man with the Golden Arm, and Stalag 17, and for his efforts earned a star on Hollywood's Walk of Fame, dies in New York City, aged 80, from cancer and Alzheimer's disease. 1998—James Earl Ray Dies
The convicted assassin of American civil rights leader Martin Luther King, Jr., petty criminal James Earl Ray, dies in prison of hepatitis aged 70, protesting his innocence as he had for decades. Members of the King family who supported Ray's fight to clear his name believed the U.S. Government had been involved in Dr. King's killing, but with Ray's death such questions became moot.
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