Seattle Times Trinity Web: Atomic Age

TIMELINE OF ATOMIC AGE

July 16, 1945 -- First atomic bomb explodes in Trinity test.
Aug. 6 and 9, 1945 -- U.S. drops atomic bombs on Hiroshima and Nagasaki, Japan. More than 200,000 die from blast, radiation.
End of 1945 -- Two atomic bombs in U.S. arsenal.
1946 -- Nine atomic bombs in U.S. arsenal. New Yorker publishes John Hersey's "Hiroshima," revealing bomb's horrors to public. But photos and films of survivors remain classified for two decades.
1948 -- 50 bombs in U.S. arsenal.
1949 -- Soviet Union explodes first atomic bomb.
1950 -- U.S. has 300 bombs.
1952 -- Britain tests atomic bomb. New York City issues 500,000 dogtags to identify children's remains in event of nuclear attack.
September 1953 -- President Eisenhower proposes U.N. "Atoms for Peace" plan in which all nuclear stocks would be placed under international control. Soviets reject plan, calling it a public-relations move.
March 1954 -- U.S. hydrogen bomb at Bikini Atoll. Blast 1,000 times greater than Hiroshima.
1957 -- Soviets launch Sputnik.
1958 -- Soviets install first intercontinental ballistic missiles.
1960 -- First submarine-launched nuclear missiles deployed. France tests nuclear bomb. Israeli nuclear program begins.
July 1961 -- President Kennedy urges Americans to build bomb shelters. Life Magazine offers tips.
October 1962 -- Cuban Missile Crisis. U.S. military goes to Defense Condition 2, one stage before nuclear war. Air Force sends B-52 bombers beyond fail-safe points toward Soviet Union. Soviets withdraw missiles from Cuba; U.S. quietly withdraws missiles from Turkey.
1963 -- After 235 atmospheric nuclear tests, Partial Test Ban Treaty signed. Tests go underground.
1964 -- Movies "Doctor Strangelove" and "Fail Safe." Lyndon Johnson presidential campaign ads featuring a trigger-happy Barry Goldwater and a mushroom cloud are withdrawn after public revulsion. China explodes atomic bomb.
February 1964 -- Secretary of Defense Robert McNamara outlines policy of Mutually Assured Destruction, or MAD: "A full-scale nuclear exchange between the United States and the USSR would kill 100 million Americans during the first hour. It would kill an even greater number of Russians, but I doubt that any sane person would call this `victory.'"
December 1964 -- U.S. Joint Chiefs of Staff propose use of all military means, even "nuclear weapons at some point," in Vietnam.
1967 -- U.S. nuclear arsenal reaches all-time high of 32,500.
1970 -- Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty goes into effect. Nuclear powers agree to share peaceful nuclear technology with countries that promise never to make weapons. Treaty calls for eventual disarmament.
1970 -- Russians devise "doomsday machine," a rocket that would order launch of all nuclear missiles in event U.S. first strike kills Soviet leaders.
1972 -- Pakistan begins secret nuclear program.
1973 -- Arab-Israeli War. President Nixon orders U.S. nuclear forces to DefCon 3, two steps from nuclear war.
1974 -- India tests nuclear bomb.
1979 -- President Carter, running for re-election, deploys Pershing cruise missiles to Europe, withdraws SALT II from Senate and signs presidential directive endorsing doctrine of limited nuclear war.
1983 -- 100 million TV viewers see "The Day After," depicting holocaust in American heartland.
March 1983 -- President Reagan announces Strategic Defense Initiative, or "Star Wars."
December 1983 -- Carl Sagan writes of "nuclear winter," saying a nuclear exchange would blot out sun, potentially annihilate life on planet: "The ashes of communism and capitalism will be indistinguishable."
1984 -- U.S. detects launch of two Soviet missiles. Turns out to be computer glitch.
1986 -- Soviet arsenal reaches peak of 45,000.
1986 -- Soviet Chernobyl power plant blows, spewing 10 times the radiation released at Hiroshima.
July 1990 -- Last U.S. nuclear weapon assembled.
1991 -- Presidents Bush and Gorbachev agree to reduce arsenals by a third. Both sides withdraw thousands of midrange missiles.
1991 -- Congress authorizes $1.2 billion to guard former Soviet nuclear sites and disarm warheads.
September 1992 -- Last U.S. nuclear test.
1993 -- Presidents Bush and Yeltsin sign Start II, limiting weapons to 3,500 each. Not yet ratified.
May 30, 1994 -- U.S., Russian nuclear missiles aimed to Arctic Ocean. But they can be retargeted toward cities within minutes.
1994 -- German police investigate 267 cases of suspected trading in radioactive material, seize smuggled plutonium on three occasions. Scientists arrested in Prague with 7 pounds of weapons-grade uranium.
1994 -- Pentagon refuses to renounce "first-strike" doctrine.
1995 -- Gallup poll shows that 60 percent of Americans surveyed are unable to name the president who ordered Hiroshima, Nagasaki bombings. Twenty-two percent are virtually ignorant of fact that atomic bombs were dropped.
May 1995 -- 170 nations agree to extend Non-Proliferation Treaty. But U.S. officials call attempts by Mexico and Japan to push for disarmament a "clear and present danger" to U.S. security. Move is quashed.
July 1995 -- National Academy of Scientists calls surplus plutonium a "clear and present danger" to U.S. security. Four kilograms, the size of an orange, is enough to make a nuclear bomb. They call for U.S.-Russian program to solidify the plutonium into glass logs. Russians oppose idea, calling plutonium the "gold" of the nuclear age.
1995 -- Brookings Institution, a think tank, estimates U.S. nuclear-weapons program has cost at least $4 trillion in 1995 dollars over 50 years.
1995 -- France announces plans to test eight nuclear bombs. Pentagon wants new tests, too.