These Government Photos Were Top Secret – Until Recently

Operation Ivy

After the bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki, Japan during World War II, the United States government went ahead and conducted several series of thermonuclear device testing. The eighth of these series was known as Operation Ivy, which involved two planned explosions on the island of Elugelab, in the Marshall Islands.

Pictured is the first of these full-scale explosions, and more specifically the first-ever test of a hydrogen bomb detonation, nicknamed Ivy Mike. Ivy Mike was detonated on November 1, 1952.