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The test explosion site was a very remote desert-like mountain area from which the nearest main town is probably Alamogordo, New Mexico. Still, the noise was heard and the light was seen. The army put out a story that a munitions dump (or was it a munitions train?) had exploded. The history of the human race was altered profoundly that day, but the general public did not become aware of it until about three weeks later when the first atomic bomb used in anger was dropped on Hiroshima on August 6, 1945, which was of course the second atomic explosion in history. The United States publicly announced that it was indeed an atomic bomb, and the Japanese government came to the same conclusion a couple of days later following the report of an investigative commission. Then three days later came the turn of Nagasaki.
The next bomb wouldn't be ready for another two or three weeks, but we didn't want Japan to know that in the hope for a quick surrender, which is what in fact happened. Incredibly, the Japanese militarists were motivated more toward surrender by the invasion of Manchuria by the Soviet Union than by the atomic bomb, while the Emperor and the civilians in the government were motivated primarily by the atomic bomb.
This was the first of only three nuclear tests the United States would conduct in New Mexico - the other two were at different locations in the state in the 1960s.
Aside from over 900 tests in Nevada, there were also three conducted in the Aleutian Islands of Alaska, two in western Colorado, and two in southern Mississippi. And aside from the Trinity test, the only atmospheric detonations in the U.S. were conducted in Nevada (precisely 100 of them).
Outside of the United States, over 100 tests were conducted in the south Pacific, and 3 were conducted in the upper atmosphere over the south Atlantic. Also, a number of tests were undertaken jointly with the UK on Christmas Island.
This does not include the two deployments in combat of atomic weapons in Japan, though one - Little Boy, used at Hiroshima - was a design that differed radically from that used in the Trinity test, and was never tested before operational deployment on August 6, 1945.
The Soviets tested their nukes in various places in the USSR. China, India, Pakistan and North Korea have also done their testing at home.
The British tested their nukes on islands in the Pacific and Indian oceans, and at various locations in Australia.
The French tested their a few of their nuclear weapons in Algeria, and the rest in the south Pacific.
So far as is definitively known, neither Israel nor South Africa (which has long since dismantled their nuclear arsenal) ever tested a nuclear device. However, there is some evidence that either ( or both, jointly) tested a nuclear device in 1979 over the Indian Ocean (the so-called Vela Incident).
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