Russian to Test Unstoppable Stealth Nuclear Missile, “Satan-2”

The thought that Russia could hit the United States terrified Americans for generations, with many breathing a sigh of relief when the Soviet Union collapsed in the 1990’s and abandoned it’s active hostility to the US. Today, however, it seems we are returning to the most chilling days of the Cold War, when the threat of nuclear attacks hung over people daily:

“First Lightning

After Hiroshima and Nagasaki were destroyed, Stalin ordered Russian scientists to build him a nuclear bomb.

Working in a facility called the Kurchatov Institute – which was referred to only as the ‘office’ or ‘base’ in official communications – Soviet scientists were able to build a weapon in less than five years.

The RDS-1, or First Lightning, was then tested in the Kazakh Soviet Socialist Republic (Kazakhstan) on 9 August 1949 at 7am.

It detonated with a similar force to America’s bombs and sparked the nuclear arms race, leading to the creation of weapons with an almost unimaginable destructive force.

Estimated death toll: 62, 450

Operation Hurricane

This is the codename given to the first British nuclear weapons test, which took place on October 3 1952 in a lagoon between the Montebello Islands in Western Australia.

Westminster was terrified that a weapon could be put in a boat and sailed right up the Thames, so it tested the British bomb aboard a 1,370-ton frigate called HMS Plym.

More than 1,000 British men were forced to strip to the waist and watch the test, causing many to suffer cancers and radiation-linked diseases later in their lives.

In 2002, the Sunday Mirror launched a campaign seeking official recognition of the horrific effects the nuclear bomb tests had on British servicemen.

Estimated death toll: 70,220

Ivy Mike

This 82 tonne American weapon was the size of a building and was so powerful scientists feared detonating it would ignite the whole of Earth’s atmosphere – killing everything on the planet.

It was the world’s first thermonuclear device which used a fusion reaction to cause a blast, leading it to be called the hydrogen bomb – or H-bomb.

This truly terrifying weapon was tested on October 31 1952 on Enewetak, an atoll in the Pacific Ocean, where it blew up a hole in the ground which was 50 metre deep and almost 2km wide.

Although the bomb was too large to be practically used as a weapon, it led to the creation of a number of small, horrifically powerful H-bombs.

Estimated death toll: 2,339,350″

Source: The Mirror