Cherokee nuclear test
MAY 20, 2015
DOI: 10.1063/PT.5.030969
On this day in 1956 a US Air Force B-52 bomber released a Mark 15 nuclear bomb near Bikini atoll. Known as Cherokee, the test was the first conducted by the US of an air-dropped thermonuclear weapon. Due to navigation error, the 3.8-megaton warhead detonated 4 miles from its target and out of range of the instruments that were in place to measure the bomb’s effects. Despite that failure, Cherokee demonstrated to the world that the US could use bombers to deliver thermonuclear weapons.
Date in History: 20 May 1956
© 2015 American Institute of Physics
