This Day in American Military History

16 July 1945: Trinity: in the southern New Mexican desert, at 5:30 a.m., the United States detonated the first nuclear bomb, the culmination of the massive Manhattan Project. “The Gadget” sat atop a 100-foot tower for the detonation, the timing of which was meant to occur as the Potsdam Conference was beginning. The energy released was the equivalent of 21 kilotons of TNT. Ground zero was equidistant between Albuquerque and El Paso, Texas. President Harry S. Truman would soon order bombs dropped on the Japanese cities of Hiroshima, Japan (August 6) and Nagasaki (August 9), hastening the surrender of Japan and the end of World War II.

Quote of the Day: “Now I am become Death, the destroyer of worlds…” J. Robert Oppenheimer, responsible for the research and design of an atomic bomb, quoting Hindu scripture after the bomb’s first test

Brandus, Paul. This Day in U.S. Military History (pp. 174-175). Bernan Press. Kindle Edition.