Time lapse of every nuclear explosion ever undertaken.

[Al R]

Scary, beautiful too. Each nation gets a blip and a flashing dot on the map whenever they detonate a nuclear weapon, with a running tally kept on the top and bottom bars of the screen. It starts slowly but if you want to see real action, skip ahead to 1962 or so — the buildup becomes almost overwhelming.

No cold war medal anyone? Damn, that just came out..

Time lapse map of every nuclear explosion ever on Earth | memolition

[Wensleydale]

It doesn't show the reaction caused when I forgot to record Downton earlier in the year!

[500N]

Very interesting.

I didn't realise just how many different places they had been detonated.
France's first one for a start. Will have to look up exactly where that was.

And how many explosions had occurred in Aus.

[newt]

Wensleydale!!

I can only imagine the fallout!!

[clicker]

I was surprised at how many France has let off.

[SASless]

Cold War? Seems we did a very good job of bombing ourselves. How many were detonated as a way of sending some "signal" to the other Powers?

[Squirrel 41]

Originally Posted by 500N

France's first one for a start. Will have to look up exactly where that was.

It was in southern Algeria in 1960. This became more serious in 1961 when there was a test at the time of the 1961 Algiers putsch - the concern being that the rebels may have a live nuclear weapon on their hands.

Given the brutality of the Algerian War of Independence, it is also interesting that French nuclear testing was allowed to continue in Algeria until 1966/67.

Originally Posted by clicker

I was surprised at how many France has let off.

After the resumption of US-UK nuclear cooperation in 1957, the UK was using US bomb designs and, presumably, US test data. As such, the UK total of 45 is abnormally low given our warheads and stockpile, rather than the French's being that high. Full details of UK testing, and US/UK joint tests in Nevada, are here.

Hope this helps,

S41

[dallas]

Amazing. I'd have guessed at maybe inside 100 nuclear detonations across the world, but 2053! Blimey...

[500N]

Squirrel

Thanks for that. I thought it might be Algeria but at the time couldn't think of the name of their colony.


Dallas
I thought it might be a couple of hundred but over 2000

I once looked at the holes in the ground / depressions in Nevada.
Was surprised how many in such a small area. Not talking hundreds
by any means but a few.

[Squirrel 41]

Originally Posted by Dallas

Amazing. I'd have guessed at maybe inside 100 nuclear detonations across the world, but 2053! Blimey...

It's a little more than that, Dallas - this cuts off in 1998, so it misses the end of the Pakistani series (and NB, China allegedly conducted some tests for Pakistan in China in the 80s, which would make sense given that Pakistan uses Chinese bomb designs). It also leaves off the North Korean tests in 2006/09 and earlier this year.

Wiki is pretty good on this, actually.

Oh, and in omitting it, the movie also decides that the "Vela incident" off of southern African in 1979 definitely *wasn't* a joint Israeli / (apartheid) South African test....

S41

[rjtjrt]

Cold War? Seems we did a very good job of bombing ourselves. How many were detonated as a way of sending some "signal" to the other Powers?

SAS
You in US and those in Russia and China can say that as a good proportion of the ones you let off were on or under your own soil.
Europeans can't as they were very careful not to bomb themselves - they carefully made sure they only let them off somewhere where others lived.

[Robert Cooper]

You bastards should have been on Christmas Island in 1957/58, then you might have seen what a nuclear explosion was all about. Some of us are still trying to get recognition of what we when through, despite UK government opposition.

Bob C

[500N]

I noticed that in Russia, one dot appeared to be right up north on
the coast of Russia. I think it was an early explosion.

Not sure how old all of you are but in the 70's and 80's, nearly every study in my school was adorned with photos of at least one above ground Nuclear Explosion Mushroom cloud.

[Robert Cooper]

70's and 80's was a bit late. Most of it was going of in the 50's.

Bob C

[500N]

Yes, but the Posters of the Explosions, when did they proliferate ?
I thought it was in the 70's.

[rjtjrt]

500N
Tha Russian way up north I think was the Tsar Bomba, the biggest one ever.

Tsar Bomba - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

John

[500N]

Wow, that was some bomb.

[TBM-Legend]

What about South Africa and Israel?

[VIProds]

Great time lapse. I used it on a video that I recently finished, filming a Valiant Technician talking about the Atomic Tests at Maralinga, Aus. & the Grapple series at Christmas Island.

I had noticed that some of the British tests that were flagged up, appeared in the Nevada Desert in the early 60's.

[gr4techie]

I take it the Americans did not like Nevada!

It's interesting to look at a satellite photo of Nevada on Google Maps and explore how many nuclear bomb craters they are.


yes, I know this is not a satellite photo