Tag Archives: Atomic Age

Site for the first atomic blast opens for one day in October – here’s how to go

By Kathleen Bangs, CNN, Updated 12:46 PM EDT, Tue September 12, 2023

Jim Lo Scalzo/EPA/Shutterstock, Tourists pose at Ground Zero, marked by a black stone obelisk, back in April 2015.

It’s one thing standing in line to watch the blockbuster film “Oppenheimer.”

It’s another thing entirely queuing up in a remote desert to experience the location of the film’s most pivotal scene.

But if you’re a fan of atomic history and can swing central New Mexico this October, your pilgrimage through the Jornada del Muerto (Dead Man’s Journey) will be so worth the effort.

Saturday, October 21, presents a rare opportunity to visit not just one but two scientifically significant and movie-famous destinations on the same day – each occupying opposite ends of the electromagnetic spectrum.

Editor’s Note: One part of my screenplay-in-progress is set at the Trinity Site in New Mexico…

Source: https://www.cnn.com/travel/trinity-site-open-new-mexico-oppenheimer/index.html

First atomic blast in 1951 shook, shaped Vegas and Nevada

There were more than 1,000 atomic tests in Nevada’s desert between 1951 and 1992, including about 100 above ground.

“VEGANS ‘ATOM-IZED,’” a Las Vegas Review-Journal headline read the next day, Jan. 28, 1951, in big, bold, all-capital letters across the front page.

Coverage featured reports from people awakened by the shockwave, or who witnessed a blinding, white flash, or described a “borealis effect” spread over the whole sky to the northwest.

Source: First atomic blast in 1951 shook, shaped Vegas and Nevada