Looking back

On April 22, 1952, Charlie, a 31-kiloton nuclear test, was detonated 3,447 feet above Yucca Flats at the Nevada Test Site. The Los Alamos–designed test was part of the Tumbler-Snapper operation and also part of the military’s Desert Rock IV exercises, during which thousands of military personnel trained to simulate activity on a nuclear battlefield. Here, members of the Army’s 82nd Airborne Division parachute toward a drop zone just north of ground zero.