1939
Lise Meitner and Otto Frisch of Austria announce theory of nuclear fission.
Frederic Joliot demonstrates possibility of splitting the atom of uranium isotope 235.
January 25
First experimental fission in U.S. takes place at Columbia University.
August 2
Albert Einstein's first letter to President Franklin Roosevelt leads to formation of Committee on Uranium. The letter, originally drafted by Leo Szilard states "that the element uranium may be turned into a new and important source of energy in the immediate future. Certain aspects of the situation which has arisen seem to call for watchfulness and, if necessary, quick action on the part of the Administration." After the bombing of Hiroshima, Einstein states, "I could burn my fingers that I wrote that first letter to Roosevelt."
1941
October 9
President Roosevelt decides to proceed with development of an atomic weapon after a meeting in which he is informed of its feasibility.
December 6
The secret U.S. project to build an atomic bomb, later to be called the Manhattan Project, is put under the direction of the Office of Scientific Research and Development.
1942
September 23
Colonel Leslie Groves is promoted to Brigadier-General and put in charge of the Manhattan Project. He recruits J. Robert Oppenheimer as Scientific Director.
December 2
Enrico Fermi and his team at the University of Chicago produce the world's first controlled and sustained nuclear fission reaction. Leo Szilard and Fermi originate the method of arranging graphite and uranium which makes the reaction possible
1944
March 13
Barely sixteen months after the feasibility of achieving a self-sustaining nuclear chain reaction was established by Enrico Fermi in Chicago -- a tightly held secret known only to a very limited number of individuals in the U.S., UK and Canada -- Homi Jehangir Bhabha initiates efforts to start nuclear research programms in India.
1945
Albert Einstein makes a plea for world government. He states, "Since I do not foresee that atomic energy is to be a great boon for a long time, I have to say that for the present, it is a menace."
June 11
The Franck Committee on the social and political implications of the atomic bomb, headed by Nobel Laureate James Franck, issues a report advising against a surprise atomic bombing of Japan. The report states, "If we consider international agreement on total prevention of nuclear warfare as the paramount objective...this kind of introduction of atomic weapons to the world may easily destroy all our chances of success." The report correctly predicts that dropping an atomic bomb "will mean a flying start toward an unlimited armaments race."
July 16
In the world's first atomic test detonation, Trinity, a plutonium implosion device, is exploded at 05:29.45 a.m. at Alamogordo, New Mexico. The bomb has a yield of 19 kilotons, which is equivalent to 19,000 tons of TNT. J. Robert Oppenheimer recalls a quote from the Bhagavad Gita, a Hindu classic: "I am become death, the shatterer of worlds."
August 15
Emperor Hirohito of Japan, in a radio broadcast to his nation announces that Japan has lost the war. The Emperor's announcement is hard to understand because he speaks in archaic court Japanese, but one fact is understood: "Moreover, the enemy has begun to employ a new and most cruel bomb, the power of which to damage is indeed incalcuable, taking the toll of many innocent lives."
1946
January 24
The United Nations General Assembly adopts its first resolution, which establishes an Atomic Energy Commission (AEC) and calls for the "elimination from national armaments of atomic weapons and all other major weapons adaptable to mass destruction."
June 14
At the first meeting of the United Nations Atomic Energy Commission, U.S. delegate Bernard Baruch presents a modified Acheson-Lilienthal Proposal to internationalize control of atomic energy. He announces, "We are here to make a choice between the quick and the dead. That is our business. Behind the black portent of the new atomic age lies a hope, which seized upon in faith, can work our salvation. If we fail, then we have damned every man to be the slave of Fear. Let us not deceive ourselves. We must elect World Peace or World Destruction."
July 1
The United States begins nuclear weapons testing at Bikini Atoll in the Pacific by initiating Operation Crossroads.
August 1
The United States Congress establishes its own Atomic Energy Commission (AEC) to control U.S. nuclear energy development.
December 25
The Soviet Union achieves its first nuclear chain reaction in Moscow.
1947
August
The United Kingdom's first atomic reactor at Harwell comes into operation.
July 29
The United Nations Atomic Energy Commission suspends its meetings because of the irreconcilable differences between the U.S. and USSR. [see December 30, 1946]
August 29
The Soviet Union detonates its first atomic bomb, Joe 1 (10-20 kilotons) at Semipalatinsk in Kazakhstan.
December 2 and 3
Hanford Nuclear Plant releases three tons of irradiated uranium fuel in an experiment called Green Run aimed at duplicating pollution from a Soviet reactor. The experiment places more than 7,800 curies of radioactive iodine-131, known to cause thyroid cancer in humans, into the environment. This classified atomic intelligence experiment was not disclosed for almost four decades.
1950
January 31
President Harry Truman announces that United States Atomic Energy Commission will proceed with work "on ll forms of atomic weapons, including the so-called hydrogen or super-bombs." Note
March 1
In the United Kingdom, physicist Klaus Fuchs is sentenced to 14 years for betraying atomic secrets to Soviet agents; the evidence is used later to incriminate Julius and Ethel Rosenberg, who were condemned to death.
December
The first production of electricity from atomic fission occurs at the National Reactor Testing Station in Idaho.
December 9
General Douglas MacArthur requests discretionary authority to use atomic weapons during the Korean War.
1951
The second British plutonium reactor starts operation in Windscale, Cumberland, to manufacture plutonium for nuclear weapons. In 1957 it caught fire and caused radioactive contamination of a wide area. To help the public forget, the town was renamed Sellafield. More in English | German
January 11
President Harry Truman approves the establishment of the Nevada Proving Grounds, later called the Nevada Test Site (NTS).
April 6
President Harry Truman approves military request to use atomic weapons in Manchuria if large numbers of Chinese troops join the Korean War or if bombers are launched against United Nations forces from Manchurian bases.
April 11
President Harry Truman discharges General General Douglas MacArthur for insubordination after MacArthur repeatedly criticizes the limited objectives of the war in Korea. MacArthur's Defense
1952
January 11
The United Nations abolishes the Atomic Energy Commission and establishes the Disarmament Commission in its place.
April 22
For the first time, the American media are permitted to cover live, and the public witnesses by television, the detonation of a nuclear device (a 31 kiloton atmospheric test known as Operation Big Shot) at the Nevada Test Site.
October 3
The United Kingdom conducts its first nuclear weapon test, Hurricane, at Monte Bello Island, Australia.
November 1
The United States detonates the first hydrogen bomb, 10.4 megaton Mike, at Enewetak Atoll in the Marshall Islands. The explosion is 500 times more powerful than the bomb exploded at Nagasaki.
1953
March 17
Scientists study the impact of a nuclear blast on a fabricated American city during the test Annie at the Nevada Test Site. The test is part of Operation Cue, a series of projects conducted by the Federal Civil Defense Administration to evaluate the effects of nuclear detonations on civilian communities.
June 19
Julius and Ethel Rosenberg, sentenced as atomic spies in 1951, are executed by the U.S. [see March 29, 1951
August 12
The Soviet Union tests its first simple fusion bomb, Joe 4, at the Semipalatinsk test site.
December 8
President Dwight Eisenhower, in a United Nations address, proposes Atoms for Peace, a program to extend American aid to other countries for establishing nuclear reactors for peaceful research. Eisenhower calls for the nuclear weapons states to give part of their nuclear stockpiles to a United Nations-supervised "bank of fissionable materials" in an attempt to strip nuclear energy of "its military casing and adapt it to the arts of peace."
1954
January 21
The USS Nautilus (SSN 571), the world's first nuclear-powered submarine, is launched by the United States Navy.
March 1
Bravo, a 17 megaton hydrogen bomb detonated by the United States at Bikini Atoll, contaminates a Japanese fishing boat, Lucky Dragon, and residents of Rongelap and Utirik.
April 10
President Dwight Eisenhower sends Secretary of State John Foster Dulles to offer two atomic bombs to the French for use in their war against the Vietnamese. The offer is refused.
1955
April 18
Albert Einstein dies.
May 18
The first patent for a nuclear reactor, license number 2,708,656, is issued by the United States Patent Office to the Atomic Energy Commission. The patent discloses the method by which Enrico Fermi and Leo Szilard achieved their self-sustaining chain reaction on December 2, 1942.
July 9
The Russell-Einstein Manifesto is issued, which addresses the dangers of thermonuclear weapons. The Manifesto states, "In view of the fact that in any future world war nuclear weapons will certainly be employed, and that such weapons threaten the continued existence of mankind, we urge the Governments of the world to realize, and to acknowledge publicly, that their purpose cannot be furthered by a world war, and we urge them, consequently, to find peaceful means for the settlement of all matters of dispute between them."
1956
July 1
The world's first nuclear power station (5 megawatts) begins operation at Obinsk in Russia.
August
The world's first full-scale nuclear power plant (50 megawatts) begins operation at Calder Hall in England.
1957
March 10
A U.S. Air Force B-47 bomber flying from Florida to Europe with two capsules of nuclear materials for bombs fails to meet its aerial refueling plane. No traces are ever found.
May 15
The United Kingdom tests its first thermonuclear weapon at the Christmas Islands in the Pacific.
July 12
The first commercial use of nuclear power occurs when a test reactor in Santa Susana, California transmits power to the Southern Californian grid.
August 6
The first demonstration against nuclear weapon testing, with civil disobedience, takes place at the Nevada Test Site and results in the arrest of 11 protesters.
September 29
A breakdown in the cooling system of a tank holding 70,000-80,000 tons of radioactive sludge causes an explosion at the Mayak complex in the Soviet Union. A plume of radioactive fallout of over two million curies is released.
October 4
The Soviet Union launches Sputnik I, the world's first artificial satellite.
November 8
The United Kingdom successfully tests its first hydrogen-fusion weapon.
December 2
In Shippingport, Pennsylvania, the first full scale commercial nuclear power reactor begins operation.
1958
The United States constructs a special concrete and steel bomb shelter in the hills of West Virginia for Congress to convene in during a nuclear war.
March 11
A B-47 bomber accidentally drops a nuclear weapon over Mars Bluff, South Carolina. The conventional explosive trigger detonates, leaving a crater 75-feet wide and 35-feet deep.
October 31
President Dwight Eisenhower declares a moratorium on all nuclear testing. This moratorium will last until September 15, 1961.
1959
July 21
The United States launches the world's first nuclear-powered merchant ship, the Savannah.
October 31
The United States deploys the first operational intercontinental ballistic missile (ICBM), the Atlas D.
December 1
The Antarctic Treaty establishes that "any nuclear explosion in Antarctica and the disposal there of radioactive waste material shall be prohibited."
1960
February 13
France explodes its first atomic bomb in the Sahara desert. It has a yield of 60-70 kilotons.
October 5
A radar malfunction causes the central war room of NORAD to receive a top priority warning from the Thule, Greenland Ballistic Missile Early Warning System station, indicating a massive missile attack has been launched against North America.
1961
January 23
A B-52 bomber carrying two 24 megaton bombs crashes at Goldsboro, North Carolina. On one of the bombs, five of six interlocking safety devices fail, and a single switch prevents detonation. The explosion would have been 1,800 times more powerful than the bomb exploded at Hiroshima.
June 23
The Antarctic Treaty enters into force. [see December 1, 1959]
October 30
The Soviet Union explodes the most powerful bomb ever, a 58 megaton atmospheric nuclear weapons test over Novaya Zemlya off Northern Russia.
1962
Canada's first full-scale nuclear power plant begins to provide electricity in Rolphton, Ontario. Twenty years after the first controlled nuclear fission reaction, the U.S. has 200 atomic reactors in operation, while the United Kingdom and the USSR have 39 each.
October 16-29
The Cuban Missile Crisis pushes the United States and the Soviet Union to the brink of nuclear war.
1963
April 11
The Vatican releases, the Encyclical Letter Pacem in Terris, by Pope John XXIII, which calls for an end to the nuclear arms race. It states, "All must realize that there is no hope of putting an end to the building up of armaments, nor of reducing the present stocks, nor, still less -- and this is the main point -- of abolishing them altogether, unless the process is complete and thorough and unless it proceeds from inner conviction: unless, that is, everyone sincerely cooperates to banish the fear and anxious expectation of war with which men are oppressed. If this is to come about, the fundamental principle on which our present peace depends must be replaced by another, which declares that the true and solid peace of nations consists not in equality of arms but in mutual trust alone. We believe that this can be brought to pass, and we consider that, since it concerns a matter not only demanded by right reason but also eminently desirable in itself, it will prove to be the source of many benefits."
June 10
President John F. Kennedy delivers the commencement address at American University in Washington. He states, "I speak of peace because of the new face of war. Total war makes no sense in an age when great powers can maintain large and relatively invulnerable nuclear forces and refuse to surrender without resort to those forces. It makes no sense in an age when a single nuclear weapon contains almost ten times the explosive force delivered by all of the allied air forces in the Second World War. It makes no sense in an age when the deadly poisons produced by a nuclear exchange would be carried by wind and water and soil and seed to the far corners of the globe and to generations yet unborn."
June 20
The United States and the Soviet Union establish a radio and telegraph Hot Line between them with Hot Line Agreement. This agreement provides the first official recognition of the inherent danger of nuclear weapons and the possibility of an inadvertent war arising from technical or human error. The Hot Line has been tested every hour since 1963, and the dissolution of the Soviet Union has not altered this procedure.
December 7
The District Court of Tokyo, in the case of Ryuichi Shimoda et al. v. The State, holds that "the aerial bombardment with atomic bombs of the cities of Hiroshima and Nagasaki was an illegal act of hostilities according to the rules of international law. It must be regarded as indiscriminate aerial bombardment of undefended cities, even if it was directed at military objectives only, inasmuch as it resulted in damage comparable to that caused by indiscriminate bombardment."
1964
India completes its first chemical reprocessing plant to enrich uranium. The plant is located near Bombay and built with the assistance of the United States and Canada.
October 16
China explodes its first atomic bomb at Lop Nor testing site in Sinkiang Province. Following the test, the Chinese government states, "The atomic bomb is a paper tiger. This famous statement by Chairman Mao Zedong is known to all. This was our view in the past and this is still our view at present. China is developing nuclear weapons not because it believes in their omnipotence nor because it plans to use them. On the contrary, in developing nuclear weapons, China's aim is to break the nuclear monopoly of the nuclear powers and to eliminate nuclear weapons."
1965
January 15
The Soviet Union conducts its first underground peaceful nuclear explosion at an oil well in Bashkiria. The Soviets conduct about 115 such tests between 1965 and 1989.
December 5
A nuclear-armed airplane rolls off the aircraft carrier USS Ticonderoga and sinks in 16,000 feet of water off the coast of Japan.
1966
January 17
A B-52 bomber carrying nuclear weapons has a midair accident while refueling and drops four nuclear weapons on Palomares, Spain. Although no nuclear explosion occurs, conventional explosions in two of the weapons scatter radioactive material over a populated area.
1967
June 5
France moves its nuclear testing from the Sahara Desert to its colonies in the Pacific Ocean, conducting its first test at the Moruroa atoll.
June 17
China conducts its first thermonuclear weapon test.
October 5
Failure of a sodium cooling system causes a partial core meltdown at the Enrico Fermi demonstration breeder reactor 30 miles from Detroit.
1968
January 21
A B-52 bomber crashes on the sea ice off Thule, Greenland, after the crew bale out over the Thule Air Force Base. The high explosive components of all four nuclear weapons aboard detonate scattering plutonium over the ice.
March 8-10
A Soviet Golf-II class submarine with three nuclear-armed missiles aboard sinks 750 miles off the coast of Oahu in the Hawaiian island chain.
1969
January 14
A bomb is accidentally dropped on the deck of the nuclear-powered aircraft carrier USS Enterprise, killing 25 and wounding 85 crewmen.
1970
April 12
The Soviet nuclear submarine K-8 sinks in the Bay of Biscay, killing 53 crew members.
August 19
The United States deploys the first missile with multiple independently targetable reentry vehicles (MIRVs), the Minuteman III.
December 18
A large radioactive cloud is released after a 10 kiloton underground test in Nevada. The test, code named Baneberry, is part of the nuclear tests in which radioactivity is deliberately vented out from underground. The cloud made its way to Canada.
1971
The Hot Line Modernization Agreement between the U.S. and the USSR to improve the Hot Line is also signed and enters into force. [see June 20, 1963]
1973
May 9
Australia and New Zealand institute proceedings in the International Court of Justice against French atmospheric testing of nuclear weapons in the South Pacific.
June 22
The International Court of Justice, at the request of Australia and New Zealand, states that France should avoid nuclear tests causing radioactive fall-out in the South Pacific. [see May 9, 1973]
1974
Congress divides the functions of the Atomic Energy Commission between two newly formed agencies: the Energy Research and Development Administration (ERDA), responsible for advanced reactor development, and the Nuclear Regulatory Commission (NRC), an independent panel appointed by the President to regulate the nuclear energy industry.
May 18
India conducts an underground nuclear test at Pokharan in the Rajasthen desert.
1975
March 22
A technician using a candle to check for air leaks sets fire to electrical insulation at the Brownís Ferry reactor in Decatur, Alabama; cables controlling safety equipment burns out, and the cooling water falls to dangerous levels before a makeshift system is devised.
1977
July 7
The United States announces it has tested a neutron bomb. Described as an "enhanced radiation weapon," it is a small hydrogen bomb with only one-tenth of the blast, heat and fallout produced by a normal hydrogen bomb. It is intended to disable or kill troops by producing a huge shower of neutrons that can pass through steel or concrete. Egon Bahr, a West German parliamentarian calls the bomb the result of "perverted thinking."
September 8
A Soviet Delta class nuclear-powered ballistic missile submarine accidentally jettisons a nuclear warhead near Kamchatka in the Pacific. The bomb is recovered.
1978
Dmitri Rotow, a Harvard economics student, writes a book on how to build a fission bomb. Total costs for such a weapon, not including fissile material, is $1,900. His book is so close to the real secret that the Department of Energy classifies it as secret.
June 30
The Final Document of the First United Nations Special Session on Disarmament states, "Removing the threat of a world war-a nuclear war-is the most acute and urgent task of the present day. Mankind is confronted with a choice: we must halt the arms race and proceed to disarmament or face annihilation."
1979
March 28
Three Mile Island Nuclear Power Plant accident occurs near Harrisburg, Pennsylvania. A combination of mechanical and human error results in a partial core meltdown.
May 11
Admiral of the Fleet the Earl Mountbatten accepts the award of the Louise Weiss Foundation Prize to the Stockholm International Peace Research Institute (SIPRI). He states, "A new world war can hardly fail to involve the all-out use of nuclear weapons. Such a war would not drag on for years. It could all be over in a matter of days. And when it is all over what will the world be like? Our fine great buildings, our homes will exist no more. The thousands of years it took to develop our civilization will have been in vain. Our works of art will be lost. Radio, television, newspapers will disappear. There will be no means of transport. There will be no hospitals. No help can be expected for the few mutilated survivors in any town to be sent from a neighboring town-there will be no neighboring towns left, no neighbors, there will be no help, there will be no hope."
August 7
Highly enriched Uranium is released from a secret nuclear-fuel plant near Erwin, Tennessee, and about 1,000 people are contaminated with up to five times as much radiation as they would normally receive a year.
September 22
A nuclear explosion occurs over the South Indian Ocean off the Cape of Good Hope, possibly conducted by Israel, with the assistance of South Africa.
November 9
A simulated missile attack accidentally fed into the American early warning system fools operators. During the six minutes it takes to discover that the attack is not authentic, fighters from bases in the United States and Canada take off, and missile and submarine installations worldwide are placed on alert.
1980
June 3
A 46-cent computer chip fails, causing the mistaken detection of a Soviet missile attack by the NORAD system. About 100 B-52 bombers were readied for take off along with the President's airborne command post before the error is detected.
September 20
A technician dropping a wrench and breaking a fuel tank causes an explosion in the silo of a Titan II Inter-Continental Ballistic Missile. The explosion blows off the 740 ton silo cover and sends the re-entry vehicle with its 9 megaton warhead 600 feet into the air. The accident kills one man and injures 21 others.
October 16
China conducts the last known nuclear weapon test in the atmosphere. The last French atmospheric test was in 1974. These two countries did not adhere to the Partial Test Ban Treaty, signed by the U.S. and the Soviet Union in 1963.
1981
January 14
President Jimmy Carter gives his Farewell Address. He states, "In an all-out nuclear war, more destructive power than in all of World War II would be unleashed every second during the long afternoon it would take for all the missiles and bombs to fall. A World War II every second-more people killed in the first few hours than all the wars of history put together. The survivors, if any, would live in despair amid the poisoned ruins of a civilization that had committed suicide."
April 9
The USS George Washington, a submarine carrying 160 nuclear warheads, collides with a Japanese freighter in the East China Sea.
June 7
Israel bombs Iraq's Osirak nuclear reactor to prevent Iraq from developing nuclear weapons.
November 2
An American Poseidon nuclear missile being winched from the submarine support ship USS Holland falls seventeen feet when the winch runs free. The automatic brakes on the winch bring it to rest just above the submarine's hull.
1982
February 24
The first major anti-nuclear demonstration since 1957 occurs at the Nevada Test Site.
June 12
One million people gather in New York City's Central Park in support of the Second United Nations Special Session on Disarmament. It is the largest anti-war demonstration in history.
1983
March 23
President Ronald Reagan delivers Star Wars speech, in which he calls upon the scientific community to devise a space-based defense system capable of protecting the United States from intercontinental ballistic missiles. He describes his plans for new anti-missile technology as "a new hope for our children in the 21st century."
June 27
In an interview with the West German magazine Der Spiegel, the French defense minister announces that France has tested a neutron bomb and is able to start production as soon as the president so decides.
1984
June 10
The Pentagon conducts a rigged Star Wars test in which an experimental rocket intercepts an electronically coded ICBM some 100 miles above the earth. The ICBM had been secretly modified to make it easier to track. The fraudulent experiment, authorized by Defense Secretary Caspar Weinberger, was purportedly to deceive the Soviets, but also deceives the Congress, which authorizes some $30 billion for the Strategic Defense Initiative over the next nine years.
1985
January 10
An American Pershing II missile catches fire near Heilbronn, West Germany, hurling white hot rocket parts to within 250 yards of a store of nuclear warheads.
July 10
French secret service agents bomb the Greenpeace vessel Rainbow Warrior, docked in Auckland, New Zealand, killing one person aboard. The ship was in the South Pacific to protest French nuclear tests.
August 26
Samantha Smith, a young girl who became a symbol of peace during the Cold War, dies in a plane accident. In 1982 she was invited to Moscow by Soviet Premier Yuri Andropov, after writing the following letter:
Dear Mr. Androprov,
My name is Samantha Smith. I am ten years old. Congratulations on your new job. I have been worrying about Russia and the United States getting into a nuclear war. Are you going to vote to have a war or not? If you aren't please tell me how you are going to help to not have a war. This question you do not have to answer, but I would like to know why you want to conquer the world or at least our country. God made the world for us to live in peace and not to fight.
December 10
The International Physicians for the Prevention of Nuclear War (IPPNW) receives the Nobel Peace Prize. Dr. Bernard Lown, accepting the award, states, "Combating the nuclear threat has been our exclusive preoccupation, since we are dedicated to the proposition that to ensure the conditions of life, we must prevent the conditions of death. Ultimately, we believe people must come to terms with the fact that the struggle is not between different national destinies, between opposing ideologies, but rather between catastrophe and survival. All nations share a linked destiny; nuclear weapons are the shared enemy."
1986
January 4
A cylinder of Uranium hexafluoride, a chemical used in nuclear-fuel production, is improperly heated at a Kerr-McGee plant at Gore, Oregon. One worker dies and 100 are hospitalized.
January 15
Soviet President Mikhail Gorbachev calls for the abolition of nuclear weapons by the year 2000. He states, "No one must be indifferent or stand aloof in the matter of preserving peace and saving mankind from the threat of nuclear war. This concerns each and everyone. Each state, large or small, socialist or capitalist, has an important contribution to make. Every responsible political party, every mass organization and every individual also has an important role to play. No task is more urgent, more noble and humane than to unite all efforts to achieve this lofty goal. The task is to be accomplished by people of our generation without shifting it onto the shoulders of those who succeed us. That is the bidding of our time or, if you like, the burden of historic responsibility for our decision and action in the time that remains until the beginning of the third millennium."
April 26
An uncontrolled surge of power, followed by fire and an explosion, at reactor No. 4 of the Chernobyl Nuclear Power Plant sends a radioactive cloud around the world and contaminates large areas in the Ukraine and Byelorussia. Some 50 million curies of radiation are released.
September 30
Israeli agents kidnap Mordechai Vanunu, a nuclear technician at Israel's Dimona nuclear installation from 1976 to 1985. Days later, the London Sunday Times publishes the evidence he released, which leads experts to conclude that Israel may have stockpiled up to 200 nuclear warheads. Vanunu is tried in secrecy in Israel, convicted of treason and espionage, and sentenced to 18 years imprisonment. Vanunu states, "I have sacrificed my freedom and risked my life in order to expose the danger of nuclear weapons which threatens this whole region. I acted on behalf of all citizens and all of humanity."
October 3
A fire breaks out aboard the Soviet Yankee Class nuclear submarine K-219 in the Atlantic about 400 miles east of Bermuda. Heroic efforts by crew members prevent a reactor meltdown that could have contaminated the East coast of the U.S. and Canada. The submarine sinks three days later.
1987
January 12
Twenty German judges are arrested for blocking the road in front of the American Air Force base at Mutlangen, West Germany. Judge Ulf Panzer states, "Fifty years ago, during the time of Nazi fascism, we judges and prosecutors allegedly 'did not know anything.' By closing our eyes and ears, our hearts and minds, we became a docile instrument of suppression, and many judges committed cruel crimes under the cloak of the law. We have been guilty of complicity. Today we are on the way to becoming guilty again, to being abused again. By our passivity, but also by applying laws, we legitimize terror: nuclear terror. Today we do know. We know that it needs only the push of a button and all Germany, Europe, the whole world, will be a radiating desert without human life. It is because we know this that we have to act. Many of us judges have organized 'Judges and Prosecutors for Peace.' We have raised our voices in warning against nuclear death. We have worked with local peace groups, advertised against nuclear armaments, demonstrated and submitted resolutions to our parliament...Our warnings have died away unheard. That is the reason why we today block the U.S. air base in Mutlangen. We hope that such an action will be heard more loudly than all our words before."
1988
August 15
Fourteen Missouri Peace Planting activists simultaneously enter 10 different ICBM launch sites in Missouri and plant sunflowers at the missile silos.
December 31
Pakistan Prime Minister Benazir Bhutto and Indian Prime Minister Rajiv Gandhi sign an agreement not to attack each other's nuclear installations.
1989
September 22-24
The First World Congress of the International Association of Lawyers Against Nuclear Arms (IALANA meets at The Hague. The Final Declaration affirms "that the use or threat of use of nuclear weapons is a war crime and a crime against humanity, as well as a gross violation of other norms of international customary and treaty law."
November 9
The Berlin Wall falls, as East Germany opens its borders with West Germany.
1991
August 29
Semipalatinsk, the primary Soviet nuclear test site, is permanently shut down.
September 27
President George Bush announces cancellation of the MX rail-garrison and short-range attack missile (SCRAM II) programs and the withdrawal of all remaining Army ground-based tactical nuclear weapons and Navy tactical nuclear weapons worldwide. (Air Force and Marine tactical nuclear weapons are not affected). He also ends the 24-hour alert status of B-1B and B-52 bombers.
October 11
Fire breaks out at reactor No. 2 at the Chernobyl nuclear power station. [see also April 26, 1986]
October 29
The Ukrainian Supreme Soviet passes a resolution calling on the United Nations to initiate a scientific-technical program to close the Chernobyl nuclear power station.
December 25
Mikhail Gorbachev resigns as president of the Soviet Union and signs a decree making Russian President Boris Yeltsin commander of the Soviet arsenal of 27,000 nuclear warheads.
1992
January 28
President George Bush in his State of the Union Address announces the following: cancellation of the Midgetman Missile Program; no additional production of W-88 warheads or MX2 test missiles; termination of the B-2 bomber program after 20 planes are built (in about 1996); and cessation of production of the advanced cruise missile at 640 missiles.
January 31
The United Nations Security Council, at heads of state level, unanimously declares that nuclear proliferation constitutes a threat to international peace and security.
February 7
Foreign Secretary Shahryar Khan of Pakistan admits in an interview with the Washington Post that his country has the components to assemble at least one nuclear bomb.
April 8
French Premier Pierre Beregovoy announces that France will suspend nuclear testing.
May 21
China conducts a one-megaton nuclear weapon test, its largest test ever.
June 15
Defense Minister Tom King of Great Britain announces that the British Navy will no longer routinely carry nuclear weapons on their surface ships and that the weapons previously earmarked for this role will be destroyed.
June 17
Russian President Boris Yeltsin addresses a joint session of Congress, stating that the nuclear weapons of the Cold War "turned out to be obsolete and unnecessary to mankind. And it is now simply a matter of calculating the best way and the best time schedule for destroying them and getting rid of them."
August 3
France officially adheres to the Non-Proliferation Treaty as a nuclear weapons state, 24 years after the treaty was opened for signatures. [see July 1, 1968]
August 4
The U.S. Senate votes 68 to 26 for a nine-month moratorium on nuclear weapons testing beginning October 1, 1992, and a final cut-off of all testing by September 30, 1996.
August 15
The United States launches its 14th Trident nuclear submarine, the USS Nebraska, with 24 multi-warhead missiles.
1993
March 24
South African President F. W. De Klerk declares in a special joint session of the South African parliament that "at one stage South Africa did develop a limited nuclear deterrent capability," but "early in 1990 final effect was given to decisions that all the nuclear devices should be dismantled and destroyed."
June 10
General Colin Powell, chair of the U.S. Joint Chiefs of Staff, says in a speech at Harvard: "Under agreements that we have negotiated over the past few years, and will come into effect by the end of the decade, we are bringing the number of our nuclear warheads down from over 20,000 when I became chairman four years ago, to just over 5,000. And today, I can declare my hope, declare it from the bottom of my heart, that we will eventually see the time when that number of nuclear weapons is down to zero and the world is a much better place."
October 5
China conducts a nuclear test at its Lop Nor test site in Xinjiang Autonomous Region. It is the first test by a nuclear weapons state in more than a year.
December 7
The U.S. Department of Energy reveals that the United States conducted 204 secret underground nuclear tests over a 45-year period. These bring the total number of U.S. nuclear tests to 1051. The Energy Department also reveals that the U.S. deliberately exposed some Americans to dangerous levels of radiation in medical experiments without their consent.
1994
January 14
President Bill Clinton and President Boris Yeltsin announce that, by the end of May, no country will be targeted by missiles of the United States or Russia. A declaration signed by the two presidents states, "For the first time since the earliest days of the Nuclear Age, the two countries will no longer operate nuclear forces, day-to-day, in a manner that presumes they are enemies."
January 14
President Bill Clinton, President Boris Yeltsin, and Ukrainian President Leonid M. Kravchuk sign the Trilateral Agreement whereby Ukraine agrees to transfer all its inherited Soviet nuclear missiles to Russia in exchange for economic assistance, fuel for its five nuclear plants from Russia and help in dismantling missile silos.
May 10
German officials seize 0.19 ounces of nearly pure weapons-grade plutonium-239 in the Stuttgart garage of a German businessman.
August 10
19.75 ounces of a mixed-oxide uranium-plutonium nuclear reactor fuel are seized at Munich Airport from a flight originating in Moscow.
November 27
American officials announce that they brought more than half a ton of highly enriched uranium from Kazakhstan to the U.S. in an operation called Project Sapphire. The nuclear material, enough to make 50 nuclear weapons, was considered not to be secure from terrorists in Kazakhstan.
December 14
Six pounds of weapons-grade uranium, believed to have been smuggled out of Russia, are seized by police in Prague, Czech Republic.
1995
January 25
Black Brant XII, a Norwegian-U.S. joint research rocket launched from Norway's northwest coast, is initially mistaken by the Russians as a nuclear attack. Russian strategic command notifies President Yeltsin, and for a few tense moments Russians consider launching a counter-attack against the U.S.
February 25
Pope John Paul II calls for the abolition of nuclear weapons: "With the persistence of tensions and conflicts in various parts of the world, the international community must never forget what happened at Hiroshima and Nagasaki, as a warning and an incentive to develop truly effective and peaceful means of settling tensions and disputes. Fifty years after the Second World War, the leaders of nations cannot become complacent but rather should renew their commitment to disarmament and to the banishment of all nuclear weapons."
April 5-6
All five nuclear weapons states issue new texts of their negative security assurances. The texts of the United States, Russia, United Kingdom, and France are nearly identical, and all have major exceptions. Only China has a clear and absolute No First Use policy.
May 15
China explodes a nuclear device in the 40-150 kiloton range, despite its pledge just days prior at the Non-Proliferation Treaty Review and Extension Conference to "exercise utmost restraint" regarding future nuclear testing.
June 13
French President Jacques Chirac declares that France will end a three-year moratorium and resume nuclear testing in the South Pacific triggering worldwide protest.
July 9
About 150 French commandos storm and tear gas the Greenpeace vessel Rainbow Warrior II after the ship enters the 12-mile exclusion zone around the French nuclear test site at Moruroa.
August 6
50th Anniversary of the dropping of the atomic bomb on Hiroshima. Mayor of Hiroshima Takashi Hiraoka states, "Nuclear weapons are clearly inhumane weapons in obvious violation of international law. So long as these weapons exist, it is inevitable that the horror of Hiroshima and Nagasaki will be repeated-somewhere, sometime-in an unforgivable affront to humanity itself."
August 9
50th Anniversary of the dropping of the atomic bomb on Nagasaki. Mayor of Nagasaki Iccho Itoh states, "The postwar generation, of which I am a member, has no experience of war or the atomic bombings. We must listen to the words of the atomic bomb survivors, study about the historical events leading to World War II, the horror of war and the reality of the atomic bombings, and recognize the fact that the human race cannot coexist with nuclear weapons....I ask you to join me in rising above the barriers of age and nationality and in forging a peaceful future for all humankind."
August 10
France announces its support for a Comprehensive Test Ban Treaty prohibiting "any nuclear weapon test explosion or any other nuclear explosion."
August 17
China conducts its 43rd nuclear weapons test at its Lop Nor test site. The explosion has a yield of 60 kilotons. The resulting earth tremor measures 5.6 on the Richter Scale.
September 5
France breaks its three-year moratorium on nuclear testing with a 20 kiloton explosion at the Moruroa atoll in the South Pacific.
October 1
France detonates a 110 kiloton nuclear warhead, which it plans to deploy on a new generation of nuclear submarines, at the Fangataufa atoll in the South Pacific.
October 27
France explodes a 60 kiloton nuclear device at Moruroa atoll.
November 21
France conducts a 40 kiloton nuclear weapons test at Moruroa atoll.
December 8
A defective weld on a coolant tube results in a large-scale sodium leak in the fast breeder nuclear reactor Monju in Japan. The leak causes the sodium to ignite, filling the room with deadly fumes and temperatures as high as 1500 degrees Celsius, melting steel structures in the room including the thermometer tube, ventilation duct inlet, and the floor directly beneath the breached tube. The Power Reactor and Nuclear Fuel Development Corporation describes the accident as "a minor leakage in the secondary sodium loop [that] caused some fumes."
December 22
Israeli Prime Minister Shimon Peres states, "Give me peace, we will give up the nuclear capability. That's the whole story." It is widely believed that Israel has some 100-200 nuclear weapons.
December 27
France conducts a 30 kiloton nuclear weapons test at the Moruroa atoll.
1996
January 4
Physicists at the European Laboratory for Particle Physics (CERN) in Geneva, Switzerland announce that they have created the first anti-matter atom.
January 27
France explodes a 120 kiloton nuclear device at the Fangataufa atoll in the South Pacific.
January 29
Under massive international protest, especially from Europe and the Pacific countries, France ends its series of nuclear tests, two short of the eight explosions originally planned. The official press communiqué claims that the last test series has "completely and thoroughly reached its goal to guarantee the security and reliability of the deterrent power of France." President Jacques Chirac states, "I know that the decision that I made last June may have provoked, in France and abroad, anxiety and emotion. I know that nuclear weaponry may cause fear. But in an always dangerous world, it acts for us as a weapon in the service of peace."
February 22
President Jacques Chirac announces that in an effort to economize, France will stop producing plutonium and weapons-grade uranium for nuclear weapons, scrap its 18 land-based nuclear missiles and dismantle the Hades short-range mobile missile.
June 1
Ukraine becomes a nuclear weapons free state after transferring the last inherited Soviet nuclear warhead to Russia for destruction. President Leonid D. Kuchma states, "The Ukrainian people, having suffered from the Chernobyl nuclear accident, are well acquainted with the potential disaster that nuclear weapons can bring. Ukraine calls on other nations to follow our path and to do everything to wipe nuclear weapons from the face of the earth as soon as possible."
June 4
The defense ministers of the U.S., Russia, and Ukraine gather at the Pervomaisk missile base in Ukraine to celebrate Ukraine's transfer of all of its nuclear warheads to Russia for dismantlement. The defense ministers scatter sunflower seeds and plant sunflowers where missiles were once buried. U.S. Secretary of Defense William Perry states, "Sunflowers instead of missiles in the soil would ensure peace for future generations."
June 8
China conducts its 44th nuclear weapons test at its Lop Nor test site. The explosion registers 5.7 on the Richter scale. After the test, China announces it will conduct one more test later in the year.
July 28
China conducts its 45th nuclear weapons test at its Lop Nor test site. Disarmament negotiator Sha Zukang announces that this will be China's final test.
August 14
Canberra Commission on the Elimination of Nuclear Weapons, initiated and supported by the Australian government, finds that nuclear weapons diminish the security of all states, including the nuclear weapons states. The Commission calls upon the five declared nuclear weapons states to commit themselves "unequivocally to the elimination of nuclear weapons and agree to start work immediately on the practical steps and negotiations required for its achievement."
November 27
Belarus removes its last nuclear missile and turns it over to Russia for destruction. Belarus joins Ukraine and Kazakhstan as former Soviet Republics which have given up all their nuclear arms.
December 6
Northeast Utilities shuts down the Connecticut Yankee nuclear power plant, the second-oldest reactor in the United States. The plant operated for 29 years.
1997
February
Swedish government decides to start phasing out nuclear energy and to shut down the first of Sweden's twelve nuclear power plants before parliamentary elections commence in fall 1998.
February 3
In the Washington Post, Russian Prime Minister Viktor Chernomyrdin states: "We know the military omponent of NATO. We know that NATO means a powerful nuclear presence, nuclear forces and all of this, is being moved closer to us in Russia... How am I supposed to explain it to my people who have been brought up to believe NATO is the enemy?" The Russian Prime Minister states that NATO expansion would be "the biggest mistake the West has made in fifty years."
April
A newly configured nuclear weapon, the B61-11, becomes part of the U.S. operational nuclear stockpile. The new bomb is designed to burrow some 15 meters underground to destroy hardened command. The bomb is 3.7 meters long, weighs 545 kilograms and has an estimated yield of 0.3 kilotons.
July 2
The United States breaks a five year moratorium on nuclear testing by conducting an underground sub-critical nuclear weapons test, called Rebound, at the Nevada Test Site. The test is conducted by scientists from the Los Alamos National Laboratory. U.S. officials insist that they have not violated the Comprehensive Test Ban Treaty, but many critics argue that they have violated the spirit if not the letter of the treaty. [see October 27, 1995]
August
A study in the United Kingdom funded by the British Department of health, finds plutonium in the teeth of children throughout England, Northern Ireland, Scotland, and Wales. The study concludes that the cause of plutonium is radioactive discharges into the environment from the Sellafield Plutonium Reprocessing Factory.
September 6
The last of 18 U.S. Trident submarines is put to sea. It carries 192 nuclear warheads on 24 missiles.
September 8
Alexander Lebed, President Boris Yeltsin's former National Security Advisor, claims that 100 suitcase-sized nuclear bombs, each capable of killing up to 100,000 people, are missing in Russia.
September 18
The U.S. Department of Energy conducts its second sub-critical nuclear test, called Holog, at the Nevada Test Site. The test is conducted by scientists from the Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory.
October
The U.S. Department of Energy announces that it will open the Waste Isolation Pilot Plant, near Carlsbad, N.M., for storage of plutonium and other "transuranic" elements.
October 15
NASA launches the Cassini probe with a 72.3 pound plutonium power pack on its way to Saturn, despite international protests. The Cassini probe will pass within 350 miles of Earth in 1999 for a sling-shot fly-by.
December 18
The ship MSC Carla, carrying highly radioactive cesium from France to the U.S. breaks in half during a storm and loses its contents off the coast of the Azores.
December 19
Russia's Defense Minister Igor Sergeyev announces that Russia will begin deploying a new ballistic missile, the Topol-M. The advanced version of the Topol Intercontinental Ballistic Missile (ICBM) carries a single nuclear warhead and can be deployed in silos or on mobile launchers. The new missile is cheaper, more accurate than its predecessor, and is intended to become the backbone of Russia's strategic command.
December 29
Russia and China make final a deal worth $3.5 billion in a joint venture to build two 1,000 MW nuclear reactors at Lian-yungang, a coastal city about 250 miles north of Shanghai.
1998
January 10
The largest U.S. private operator of nuclear power plants, Commonwealth Edison, announces it will close two of its 12 nuclear generators because they are too expensive to operate.
February 3
The French government announces its decision to shut down the world's largest fast-breeder nuclear reactor, the Superphenix, located at Creys-Malville, near the Swiss border. The dismantling of the reactor is scheduled to begin in 2005.
February 19
The European Parliament passes a resolution calling on the U.S. government to "halt the series of sub-critical tests" and calls on "all governments to refrain from carrying out such tests."
March 25
U.S. Department of Energy detonates a sub-critical nuclear test, called Stagecoach, in the LYNER (U1a) facility at the Nevada Test Site. The test is designed by scientists from the Los Alamos National Laboratory.
May 11
India conducts three underground nuclear tests, its first in 24 years. One of the tests is a thermonuclear weapon. India's Prime Minister Atal Bihari Vajpayee states: "The tests conducted were with a fission device, a low-yield device, and a thermonuclear device.... I warmly congratulate the scientists and engineers who have carried out the successful tests."
May 28
Pakistan conducts five nuclear tests in response to India's nuclear tests earlier in the month. Pakistan's Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif states: "I am not representing a coward nation.... Today we have settled the score with India." Pakistan also announces that it will place a nuclear warhead on its recently tested Ghauri medium-range missile that can reach most targets in India.
May 30
Pakistan conducts its sixth nuclear weapons test. The explosion is in the 1 to 5 kiloton range. President Clinton states, "Pakistan and India are contributing to a self-defeating cycle of escalation."