First ever a-bombpic!

"Guess I'll just take a look around!"

The Trinity Test in New Mexico, 22 kilotons, 16 July 1945. The astonishing power of the bomb affected everyone present. Robert J. Oppenheimer, leader of the team that built the device, later wrote "We knew the world would not be the same. A few people laughed, a few people cried, most people were silent. I remembered the . . . Bhagavad-Gita. Vishnu is trying to persuade the Prince that he should do his duty and to impress him takes on his multi-armed form and says 'Now, I am become Death, the destroyer of worlds' . I suppose we all felt that one way or another." You can link to an audio file of Oppenheimer making this statement by clicking HERE. The more prosaically minded director of the test, Dr K. Bainbridge, said "Now we are all sons-of-bitches". Within three weeks, "Little Boy", pictured above right, was dropped on Hiroshima.

Fire at Los Alamos. The laboratories where Oppenheimer and his colleagues worked on the bombs dropped on Hiroshima and Nagasaki burned down on 14 May 2000. We are indebted to an unidentified photographer living in the Los Alamos area for this shot. The Central Scrutinizer has noted what appears to be a "1996" date on the above photo, but seems reasonably satisfied that it is of fire in the Los Alamos area. Click HERE for other shots.

For more recent photo-coverage of the fire in May 2000, click HERE.

Robert J. Oppenheimer, after becoming "father of the atomic bomb" (right), and his former self (left). This photograph amid the ruins of Hiroshima records their only meeting.

The photographs offer a comparison between Hiroshima, 1945, with a view across more than two miles of total devastation, and the re-built city in 1954.

The map indicates the damage done to the city on 6 August 1945 by "Little Boy", 12.5 kiloton. The destructive power of a bomb like "Apache" at 1.9 megatons was about 150 times greater.

Sexy French trends in bomb fashion