TRINITY SITE—NEW MEXICO, USA
Where the Big Bang theory took on a whole new meaning.
Driving east on New Mexico’s Highway 380, visitors are often startled by what they do not see as they approach the Trinity Site. Sixty-five years after the explosion that paved the way for nuclear war, there are no burn marks, no signs of blast, no significant radiation. But the location is anything but ordinary. At this precise point, on July 16, 1945, humans first glimpsed their capacity for catastrophic destruction and witnessed the world-altering power of the atom.