Above is a picture of a nuclear explosion approximately one millisecond after it has begun. This picture was taken in Nevada in 1952, and you can clearly see the mysterious spikes, or strands, that hang from the bottom of the explosion. These are the results of what scientists ended up calling the Rope Trick Effect.

The Plowshare program was both a public relations ploy and a serious scientific study. It was an attempt to see if nuclear bombs could be used in peaceful constructive ways. If it had been successful, America would pretty much be humming by now.

The United States did not have a good year in 1958, especially when it came to transporting nuclear weapons. There was the incident where a nuclear bomb was dropped on a little girl's playhouse. There was the plane carrying a nuclear warhead that caught fire and burned for seven hours, in Morocco.

Crooners, bright lights, the ringing of slot machines, and...atomic bombs? This strange combination became a reality in Las Vegas during the 1950s. Scheduled nuclear detonations at the Nevada Proving Ground gave plenty of opportunities to party and raise a glass to a mushroom cloud. How did this bizarre slice of…

Over 2000 nuclear tests took place between 1945 and the signing of the Comprehensive Nuclear Test Ban Treaty in 1996, with the United States and Soviet Union combining for over 1700 explosions.

In 1960, an enterprising inventor named Harold C. Tifft patented the "portable shield," a device that would ostensibly protect its user from radioactive fallout until help arrived. Or if help arrived. You're sporting your coffin on your back!

Nevada used to be atomic blast central, so it's fitting that students at the University of Nevada at Las Vegas paid tribute to the weirdness of atomic-bomb art and propaganda with a new exhibition, "Cloud 9."