UK's First Nuclear Test

Date: October 3, 1952 • Location: Dampier, Australia

The United Kingdom successfully conducted its first nuclear test, becoming the world's third state with nuclear weapons.

Operation Hurricane was the first test of a British atomic device. A plutonium implosion device was detonated on 3 October 1952 in Main Bay, Trimouille Island, in the Montebello Islands in Western Australia. With the success of Operation Hurricane, the United Kingdom became the third nuclear power, after the United States and the Soviet Union.