1957: Britain drops its first H-bomb
Britain has exploded its first hydrogen bomb as part of a series of tests in the Pacific, the Ministry of Supply has announced.
Details of the bomb, described only as a “nuclear device”, are sketchy. The term “device” indicates that it was an experimental explosive rather than a fully developed weapon.
It was almost certainly part of the thermo-nuclear weapons programme which was started in December 1954 to develop the megaton hydrogen bomb, which is as powerful as one million tons of TNT.