A LITERAL Blast From the Past

This was made in 1951; a friend of mine posted this on her facebook wall. The discussion reminded me of past history.

First of all, this was made only 6 years after the United States had used atomic weapons in war…twice. We had also burned scores of cities to the ground (mostly in Japan) with conventional weapons.

The atomic bomb was a “fission” weapon; the thermonuclear weapon (“fusion” weapon) was still in development; the first large scale test explosion was a year away. The Russians had the a-bomb though.

ICBMs were still in the future; the delivery mechanisms were relatively slow, clunky aircraft. Sure, we had the B-47 and the Russians had a B-24 knock-off, and our main strategic bomber was this clunky plane:

The Russian Badger and Bear bombers were still in the future, as was our B-52. Oh yes, we had B-29 and upgraded B-29′s called B-50′s.

Of course, nuclear tipped ICBMs were in the future as well.

So, at the time this video was made, the bombs were smaller and the delivery mechanisms less reliable.

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