Between 1945 and 1992, the United States conducted 1,054 nuclear weapons tests. The world's first nuclear weapons test occurred on July 16, 1945, near Alamogordo, New Mexico.

Between 1949 and 1990, the Soviet Union conducted 715 nuclear weapons tests. The first Soviet nuclear test was conducted at the Semipalatinsk Test Site in Kazakhstan on August 29, 1949, making the Soviet Union the second nation to detonate a nuclear weapon.

] Nuclear weapons are the most destructive weapons ever created. A single fission, or atomic, bomb killed approximately 100,000 people at Hiroshima. The largest fusion, or hydrogen, bomb produced was over 3,000 times as large.