Nuclear Weapons Of The United States
The United States was the first country to develop nuclear weapons, and is the only country to have used them in warfare, with the separate bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki in World War II. Before and during the Cold War, it conducted over a thousand nuclear tests and developed many long-range weapon delivery systems.
Until November 1962, the vast majority of the U.S. tests were above-ground; after the acceptance of the Partial Test Ban Treaty all testing was regulated underground, in order to prevent the dispersion of nuclear fallout. Between 1940 and 1996, the U.S. spent at least $8.52 trillion in present day terms on nuclear weapons development. As of February 2006, over $1.2 billion in compensation was paid to U.S. citizens exposed to nuclear hazards as a result of the U.S. nuclear weapons program, and by 1998 at least $759 million was paid to the Marshallese Islanders in compensation for their exposure to U.S. nuclear testing.
In 2010 the United States maintained an arsenal of 5,113 warheads and facilities for their construction and design, though many of the Cold War facilities have since been deactivated and are sites for environmental remediation.
Read more about Nuclear Weapons Of The United States: Nuclear Weapons Testing, Delivery Systems, Accidents, Development Agencies, Weapons Production Complex, Proliferation, International Relations and Nuclear Weapons, Occupational Illness, Status As of 2006, Current Status, United States Strategic Nuclear Weapons Arsenal, See Also
Famous quotes containing the words united states, nuclear weapons, nuclear, weapons, united and/or states:
“In a moment when criticism shows a singular dearth of direction every man has to be a law unto himself in matters of theatre, writing, and painting. While the American Mercury and the new Ford continue to spread a thin varnish of Ritz over the whole United States there is a certain virtue in being unfashionable.”
—John Dos Passos (1896–1970)
“You can’t be a Real Country unless you have A BEER and an airline—it helps if you have some kind of a football team, or some nuclear weapons, but at the very least you need a BEER.”
—Frank Zappa (1940–1993)
“Language is as real, as tangible, in our lives as streets, pipelines, telephone switchboards, microwaves, radioactivity, cloning laboratories, nuclear power stations.”
—Adrienne Rich (b. 1929)
“Advertisers are the interpreters of our dreams—Joseph interpreting for Pharaoh. Like the movies, they infect the routine futility of our days with purposeful adventure. Their weapons are our weaknesses: fear, ambition, illness, pride, selfishness, desire, ignorance. And these weapons must be kept as bright as a sword.”
—E.B. (Elwyn Brooks)
“In one notable instance, where the United States Army and a hundred years of persuasion failed, a highway has succeeded. The Seminole Indians surrendered to the Tamiami Trail. From the Everglades the remnants of this race emerged, soon after the trail was built, to set up their palm-thatched villages along the road and to hoist tribal flags as a lure to passing motorists.”
—For the State of Florida, U.S. public relief program (1935-1943)
“A little group of willful men, representing no opinion but their own, have rendered the great government of the United States helpless and contemptible.”
—Woodrow Wilson (1856–1924)