The De Baca nuclear test was part of Operation Hardtack II, a series of thirty-seven Nevada Test Ground blasts squeezed into seven weeks in order to beat a looming deadline—the beginning of a U.S./U.S.S.R. nuclear moratorium. The test ban failed when the Soviets began testing again three years later, a political crisis precipitating that failure, specifically a showdown concerning the status of East Berlin.

The test ban would have failed anyway, though, as all test bans have failed, and all future test bans will fail, because nuclear weapons are seen by weak nations as the ultimate defense against invasion by stronger nations. And of course, they’re right. Since only the year 2000, nuclear-armed nations have invaded non-nuclear nations nine times. Conversely, since the dawn of the nuclear era in 1945, a period comprising nearly seventy military encroachments, no nuclear nation has had its mainland invaded.

That's the entire uncomplicated why of nuclear weapons. There may be periods of relative inactivity, but as time goes by more nations will build them. Nuclear disaster has no choice but to follow one day. There are two scenarios for survival—either all the nuclear nations agree to reduce and eventually dismantle their nukes, or one nuclear armed nation comes to dominate all the others. Guess what? The second scenario isn't going to happen. Not ever. The De Baca test occurred today in 1958. 

Today in 1966 France tested a nuclear bomb codenamed Rigel, a 150-kiloton device detonated on oft-blasted Fangataufa Atoll, and above you see a photo of the pyrocumulus debris cloud from that event. We’re aware this is the third French nuclear test we’ve posted in a row, but we aren’t singling them out—it’s just that the French, artsy as they are, take such interesting photos, even of the horror that will one day bring about the end of civilization. But there’s a silver lining to all this. When the scabby old men who have their fingers on the nuclear buttons finally unleash these terrible weapons, the male survivors roaming the frozen landscape of nuclear winter can take solace in the fact that genetic mutations will have made actual, authentic tri-boobed women the norm. As for any benefits for women, well, we figure humanity will have finally learned that males should not be—and should never have been—in control of anything important. Oh, and double penises. Plenty of those. 

We shared an interesting photo of the French nuclear test Canopus a few years ago, and today we have another image showing the blast from many miles away. Even more than the numerous close quarters photos we’ve posted here, this really shows the titanic and awful power of the weapons that may eventually destroy us.

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. 

This debris cloud was generated yesterday in 1952 by the nuclear blast codenamed Dog, which was part of Operation Tumbler-Snapper, a series of tests that occurred at the Nevada Test Site that year. The people you see in the image are just a few of the 2,100 marines who observed the explosion. Last month Chatham House released a sobering nuclear study showing that there have been thirteen incidents since 1962 that qualify as “near use” of nuclear weapons. In two of those—the famed Oleg Penkovsky incident and the less famous but more serious Stanislaw Petrov incident—nuclear holocaust may have been averted only because individuals disobeyed orders. Chatham House also details many instances of “sloppy practice.” Two examples: President Jimmy Carter once left the U.S. nuclear launch codes in a suit that was taken to the dry cleaners, and in 1981 when Ronald Reagan was shot, his bloody pants containing the launch codes ended up in the hands of FBI agents who had no authorization to possess them. There are instances of sloppy practice from as recently as 2013. If you’re in the mood for some sobering reading, the report is here. 

In the annals of curious atomic experiments—which includes blowing up goats and other farm animals—the exposure of mannequins to the effects of nuclear detonations must rank near the top. Scientists wanted to find out what a superhot thermal radiation flash followed by a crushing pressure wave would do to human-like constructs, and of course, they wreaked total havoc—but not uniformly, which was apparently the big takeaway from these tests. The above image and those below are all from the Nevada Test Site circa early to mid-1950s.

This is one of the more famous images of a nuclear detonation, a shot of the American blast codenamed Dakota, which was part of Operation Redwing, conducted at Bikini Atoll, Marshall Islands, today in 1956. The layered effect you see is sometimes called a Wilson cloud, and consists of water vapor condensed out of the atmosphere by rarefaction, an aftereffect of a shockwave traveling through humid air. In order to perform tests on Bikini Atoll, about 200 Micronesian inhabitants were forced to relocate. They and their descendants hope to return one day, but as of now their home is still too contaminated with radiation.