16th
1891 ..... U.K ..... the FIRST ship sailed into Ellesmere Port via the Manchester Ship Canal
1935 ..... U.S.A ..... the world’s FIRST parking meters were installed in Oklahoma City
1942 ….. U.K ..... the film Mrs Miniver was FIRST shown in London. It was a huge box office success as it had been in America and was described by Churchill as " propaganda worth a hundred battleships"
1945 ..... U.S.A ..... at 5.30 a.m the FIRST nuclear explosion took place at Alamogordo, New Mexico. It was by means of fission or the splitting of the nucleus of an atom into 2 approximate equal parts. This generated enormous heat and blast and was followed by a mushroom shaped cloud and radioactive fall-out. Bombs were soon manufactured and the FIRST one was dropped on Hiroshima on 6th August of the same year from an American plane. The war with Japan was brought to an end. In 1951 the US tested a new type of nuclear weapon in the Pacific, an enormously powerful hydrogen or thermonuclear bomb which used the fusion of nuclei of isotopes of hydrogen to release nuclear energy. In 1952 a test bomb had the power of 10 megatons. Two years later a bomb with a power of 15 megatons was tested. Also in 1952 Britain made its FIRST atomic test in the Monte Bello islands off Australia. China began testing atomic weapons in 1964. Tests have also been made by France, mostly in the Pacific, since 1960 and by India in 1974 with a plutonium weapon
1951 ..... U.S.A ..... Catcher in the Rye by J D Salinger was FIRST published. A whole new generation instantly identified with the book’s sullen hero, Holden Caulfield and it was described as “the finest novel written by an American since the Great Gatsby”
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