Anti-nuclear protests first emerged in the late 1950s and early 1960s. In the United Kingdom, the first Aldermaston March, organised by the Campaign for Nuclear Disarmament, took place in 1958. In 1961, at the height of the Cold War, about 50,000 women brought together by Women Strike for Peace marched in 60 cities in the United States to demonstrate against nuclear weapons. In 1964, Peace Marches in several Australian capital cities featured "Ban the bomb" placards.
Nuclear power became an issue of major public protest in the 1970s and demonstrations in France and West Germany began in 1971. In France, between 1975 and 1977, some 175,000 people protested against nuclear power in ten demonstrations. In West Germany, between February 1975 and April 1979, some 280,000 people were involved in seven demonstrations at nuclear sites. Many mass demonstrations took place in the aftermath of the 1979 Three Mile Island accident and a New York City protest in September 1979 involved two hundred thousand people. Some 120,000 people demonstrated against nuclear power in Bonn, in October 1979. In May 1986, following the Chernobyl disaster, an estimated 150,000 to 200,000 people marched in Rome to protest against the Italian nuclear program, and clashes between anti-nuclear protesters and police became common in West Germany.
In the early 1980s, the revival of the nuclear arms race triggered large protests about nuclear weapons. In October 1981 half a million people took to the streets in several cities in Italy, more than 250,000 people protested in Bonn, 250,000 demonstrated in London, and 100,000 marched in Brussels. The largest anti-nuclear protest was held on June 12, 1982, when one million people demonstrated in New York City against nuclear weapons. In October 1983, nearly 3 million people across western Europe protested nuclear missile deployments and demanded an end to the arms race; the largest crowd of almost one million people assembled in the Hague in the Netherlands. In Britain, 400,000 people participated in what was probably the largest demonstration in British history.
On May 1, 2005, 40,000 anti-nuclear/anti-war protesters marched past the United Nations in New York, 60 years after the atomic bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki. This was the largest anti-nuclear rally in the U.S. for several decades. In 2005 in Britain, there were many protests about the government's proposal to replace the aging Trident weapons system with a newer model. The largest protest had 100,000 participants. In May 2010, some 25,000 people, including members of peace organizations and 1945 atomic bomb survivors, marched from downtown New York to the United Nations headquarters, calling for the elimination of nuclear weapons.
The 2011 Japanese nuclear accidents undermined the nuclear power industry's proposed renaissance and revived anti-nuclear passions worldwide, putting governments on the defensive. There were large protests in Germany, India, Japan, Switzerland, and Taiwan.
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