Operation Castle: Bravo
Operation Castle was a series of high-yield nuclear tests that took place at Bikini Atoll in 1954. The test shown above, “Bravo,” took place on March 1, 1954, and is considered the largest nuclear test ever carried out by the U.S. government. “Bravo” involved a high-yield thermonuclear bomb, and the blast from the explosion was immense. The planners for the test “seriously miscalculated the yield of the device,” Brookings Institute commentator Ariana Rowberry writes, which led to huge amounts of radiation contamination.
