Postwar to H-Bomb

The United States detonated the world's first hydrogen, or thermonuclear, device on October 31, 1952. Codenamed "Mike", this device stood three stories high and exploded with a force of 10.4 megatons. The mushroom cloud rose to a height of over 100,000 feet and was clearly visible from a distance of over fifty miles. The Mike shot opened a new era in nuclear weaponry. The destructive power of nuclear weapons increased from thousands of tons of to millions of tons of TNT.