On July 16, 1945, the United States Army conducted a test at Jornata del Muerto, which now is the White Sands Missile Range. Code named Trinity, it was here that the first nuclear device was detonated. The bomb used was of the same plutonium design as the "Fat Man" bomb dropped over Nagasaki. For the test, the bomb was raised up an one hundred foot tower and subsequently dropped and exploded. The blast was heard over two hundred miles away and left an one thousand feet wide crater in its wake. While watching the test, Oppenheimer recalled a Hindu scripture, "Now I am become Death, the destroyer of worlds." After years of preparation and planning, this test marked the beginning of the nuclear age.
Tower at the Trinity Test site.