animal. when they set off that bomb, that bomb named mike in 1952 in the marshall islands, the fire ball reached a height of nearly 60,000 feet. the typical cruising altitude for a commercial airliner is about 30,000 feet. just the fire ball was double that height. the mushroom cloud it created was a hundred miles wide. every nuclear bomb is obviously a big deal but some a bigger deal than others. in the early 1950s, starting with that first explosion in the marshall islands, the united
marshal islands, mike, that bomb that videotaporized one of the marshall islands in 1952 was the equivalent of 10 million tons of tnt. 10 million tons. it was a qualitatively different animal. when they set off that bomb, that bomb named mike in 1952 in the marshall islands, the fire ball reached a height of nearly 60,000 feet. the typical cruising altitude for a commercial airliner is about 30,000 feet. just the fire ball was double that height. the mushroom cloud it created was a hundred miles wide. every nuclear bomb is obviously a big deal but some a bigger deal than others. in the early 1950s, starting with that first explosion in the
they completely destroyed that island, wiped it off the face of the map with one bomb, a bomb that was bigger than any bomb that had ever been set off before on earth, bigger than any other bomb on earth by a huge margin and that bomb s name was mike. mike. mike? the bombs that had been set off seven years earlier at the end of world war ii, those bombs were named fat man and little boy. those were atomic boys. one used uranium, one used plutonium. they were huge. the bomb of nagasaki was the equivalent of 21,000 tons of tnt. the bomb that truman set off in marshal islands, mike, that bomb
that videotaporized one of the marshall islands in 1952 was the equivalent of 10 million tons of tnt. 10 million tons. it was a qualitatively different animal. when they set off that bomb, that bomb named mike in 1952 in the marshall islands, the fire ball reached a height of nearly 60,000 feet. the typical cruising altitude for a commercial airliner is about 30,000 feet. just the fire ball was double that height. the mushroom cloud it created was a hundred miles wide. every nuclear bomb is obviously a big deal but some a bigger deal than others. in the early 1950s, starting with that first explosion in the marshall islands, the united states graduated from the ones like we dropped on japan, the
where harry truman decided to conjure this little gift was here. you hit hawaii, keep heading southwest and when you re about halfway to australia, what you come to out in the middle of the pacific ocean is the marshal island, a country made up of 1,156 separate islands. up until the three days before the presidential, the marshal islands had one more island than that. president truman gave the order that resulted in one of the islands of the marshal islands being vaporized. they completely destroyed that island, wiped it off the face of the map with one bomb, a bomb that was bigger than any bomb that had ever been set off before on earth, bigger than any other bomb on earth by a huge margin and that bomb s name was mike. mike.