Today in history October 30 1961, the Soviet Union exploded the world’s biggest nuclear bomb. According to Gizmodo, the nuclear bomb was called Big Ivan or Tsar Bomba.
It was 1,400 times more than the one dropped at Hiroshima in 1945 and it combined 10 times the entire firepower expended in WWII.
At 11:32 am on October 30, 1961, the Tsar Bomba exited Andrei Durnovtsev’s plane at a height of 6.5 miles and slowly parachuted towards Mityushikha Bay test range in Novaya Zemlya (giving the drop plane just 188 seconds to escape). At 2.5 miles high, the Tsar Bomba exploded.
Since the project was so rushed, only one of such weapon was ever built.
You can read more about the Big Ivan at the Atomic Heritage website.
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