History of nuclear weapons

Nuclear weapons
Background
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Nuclear-armed states
NPT recognized United States Russia United Kingdom France China Others India Israel (undeclared) Pakistan North Korea Former South Africa Belarus Kazakhstan Ukraine
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Building on major scientific breakthroughs made during the 1930s, the United Kingdom began the world's first nuclear weapons research project, codenamed Tube Alloys, in 1941, during World War II. The United States, in collaboration with the United Kingdom, initiated the Manhattan Project the following year to build a weapon using nuclear fission. The project also involved Canada.^[1] In August 1945, the atomic bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki were conducted by the United States, with British consent, against Japan at the close of that war, standing to date as the only use of nuclear weapons in hostilities.

The Soviet Union started development shortly after with their own atomic bomb project, and not long after, both countries were developing even more powerful fusion weapons known as hydrogen bombs. Britain and France built their own systems in the 1950s, and the number of states with nuclear capabilities has gradually grown larger in the decades since.

A nuclear weapon, also known as an atomic bomb, possesses enormous destructive power from nuclear fission, or a combination of fission and fusion reactions.