“Any Cowboys, Gran’pa?” cartoon on H-bomb in Greenfield Recorder-Gazette newspaper

To view or search transcription, use the button to open the sidebar. To search, use the button in the sidebar.

From the collections of PVMA • Digital image © Pocumtuck Valley Memorial Assoc. • Image use information


About this item

On March 1, 1954, the United States detonated a hydrogen bomb on the Pacific island of Bikini. It was the most powerful nuclear device ever detonated by the United States, with a yield of 15 megatons, far exceeding the expected 4 to 6 megatons. This bomb was about 1,000 times more powerful than the atomic bomb that destroyed Hiroshima in World War II. It formed a fireball almost four and a half miles across within a second and was visible on the Kwajalein atoll over 250 miles away. The mushroom cloud reached a height of 47,000 feet and a diameter of 7 miles in about a minute and eventually spread approximately 100 miles across. The cloud contaminated more than 7,000 miles of the surrounding Pacific Ocean and seriously affected the crew of a Japanese fishing boat that was within 80 miles of the test zone. Two hundred sixty-four people were exposed to large doses of radiation because the explosion and fall-out were much greater than expected. Hopalong Cassidy was the title character in a hugely popular television series of the time. He could always be counted on to come to the rescue, but even he could not help with the H-bomb.

Related Items

Details

Item typeIllustration
AuthorManning, Reginald [Reg] W.
PublisherGreenfield Recorder-Gazette
Date1954-04-07
TopicMilitary, Wars, Battles
EraCounterculture, Civil Rights, and Cold War, 1946–1989
MaterialPaper
Process/FormatPrinting
Dimension detailsProcess Material: printed paper, ink Height: 8.75 in Width: 6.75 in
Catalog #L07.016
View this item in our curatorial database →
Manning, Reginald [Reg] W. Any Cowboys, Gran’pa?. Greenfield Recorder-Gazette, April 7, 1954. Pocumtuck Valley Memorial Association, American Centuries. https://americancenturies.org/collection/l07-016/. Accessed on December 3, 2024.

Please note: Citations are generated automatically from bibliographic data as a convenience, and may not be complete or accurate.