The world’s first nuclear explosion occurred on July 16, 1945, when a plutonium implosion device was tested at a site located 210 miles south of Los Alamos on the barren plains of the Alamogordo Bombing Range, known as the Jornada del Muerto. The success of the Trinity test meant that an atomic bomb using plutonium could be readied for use by the U.S. military.
