JFK+50: Volume 5, No. 1930
US RESUMED NUCLEAR TESTING 54 YEARS AGOChristmas Island (JFK+50) Fifty-four years ago today, April 25, 1962, the United States of America detonated a nuclear bomb over Christmas Island* .
This was the first atmospheric nuclear test by the US since an agreement to stop such tests was signed with the Union of Soviet Socialists Republics in 1958.
President John F. Kennedy authorized the test, code-named OPERATION DOMINIC, after the Soviets stated their intention to violate the agreement and launched a series of forty-five tests over a two month period.
Operation Dominic comprised a series of thirty-one nuclear tests with a yield totaling 38.1 megatonnes. The nuclear weapons were dropped from B-52s. The
operation was the largest nuclear weapons program ever conducted by the United States and also the last atmospheric test before passage of the Limited Nuclear Test Ban Treaty of 1963.
*Christmas Island is located in the Indian Ocean. It was discovered by Captain William Mynors on Christmas Day 1643. Today, the island is a territory of Australia and has a population of just over 2000. Two-thirds of the populace are Malaysian Chinese.
In 1957, the British military began conducting nuclear tests using the island as their base. Those tests ended in 1963.
SOURCE
"Christmas Island: In search of Britain's nuclear legacy," by John Pickford, July 8, 2013, www.bbc.com/
Christmas Island
"LION OF THE WEST" OPENS IN NEW YORK
New York City (JFK+50) One hundred eighty-five years ago today, April 25, 1831, "Lion of the West", a drama about a backwoods character based on the real-life David Crockett of Tennessee, opened at the Park Theater here in New York City.
Crockett, a congressman from the Volunteer State, had become a legend in his own time.The play stared the popular actor, James Hackett, as Colonel Nimrod Wildfire. Two years later, Crockett was back in the news with the publication of "Sketches and Eccentricities of Colonel David Crockett of West Tennessee".
Portrait of Colonel David Crockett
by John Gadsby Chapman
