The first-ever detonation of a nuclear weapon, code-named “Trinity,” took place at 5:29 a.m. on July 16th, 1945. Giving birth to the atomic age, this was a culmination of efforts by the scientists of the Manhattan Project.
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Trinity was the code name of the first detonation of a nuclear weapon. It was conducted by the United States Army at 5:29 a.m. on July 16, 1945, as part of the Manhattan Project. The test was conducted in the Jornada del Muerto desert about 35 miles southeast of Socorro, New Mexico, on what was then the USAAF Alamogordo Bombing and Gunnery Range, now part of White Sands Missile Range.
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The only structures originally in the vicinity were the McDonald Ranch House and its ancillary buildings, which scientists used as a laboratory for testing bomb components. A base camp was constructed, and there were 425 people present on the weekend of the test.
The code name "Trinity" was assigned by J. Robert Oppenheimer, the director of the Los Alamos Laboratory, inspired by the poetry of John Donne. The test was of an implosion-design plutonium device, informally nicknamed "The Gadget", of the same design as the Fat Man bomb later detonated over Nagasaki, Japan, on August 9, 1945.
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The complexity of the design required a major effort from the Los Alamos Laboratory, and concerns about whether it would work led to a decision to conduct the first nuclear test. The test was planned and directed by Kenneth Bainbridge.
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My uncle, who passed away several years ago, was a mathematician on the Project. He witnessed the Trinity blast from a distance. In his words, "Before daylight on the morning of July 16, 1945, as I was returning to Los Alamos from Albuquerque, I saw what looked like the sun being turned on and almost immediately turned off. I knew that the test at Alamogordo (code name Trinity) had been successful." He also took a piece of fused glass from the blast site as a souvenir that he put on his mantelpiece. It remained there for a year or so until he took a Geiger counter to it and it pegged... as he later admitted, "It wasn't the smartest thing I ever did."
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