Operation Crossroads: America's First Peacetime Nuclear Tests At Bikini Atoll (1946)

Witness history's most powerful weapon tested in paradise. This declassified 1949 documentary captures
Operation Crossroads – the first U.S. nuclear weapons tests after Hiroshima and Nagasaki. In July 1946,
the U.S. military detonated atomic bombs at Bikini Atoll in the Marshall Islands to study their effects on
naval vessels and equipment. Test Able dropped from a B-29 bomber, while Test Baker produced the iconic
underwater nuclear explosion that became one of the most recognizable images of the atomic age. This rare
color footage shows the awesome destructive power that defined the Cold War era and changed warfare
forever.