This day in history

Less than one year after the United States tested its first hydrogen bomb, the Soviets detonate a 400-kiloton device in Kazakhstan. The explosive power was 30 times that of the U.S. atomic bomb dropped on Hiroshima, and the mushroom cloud produced by it stretched five miles into the sky.

Known as the Layer Cake, the bomb was fuelled by layers of uranium and lithium deuteride, a hydrogen isotope. The Soviet bomb was smaller and more portable than the American hydrogen bomb, so its development once again upped the ante in the dangerous nuclear arms race between the Cold War superpowers.

The Russian submarine K-141 Kursk sinks in the Barents Sea. All 118 people in the submarine are later found dead.

IBM introduces its first Personal Computer. 

American golfer Jack Nicklaus wins the PGA championship for his 14th major title, surpassing Bobby Jones’ record of 13 major championships.

The Royal Ulster Constabulary use tear gas for the first time to disperse rioters in Londonderry, Northern Ireland.

Adolf Hitler institutes the Mother’s Cross, to encourage German women to have more children, to be awarded each year on 12 August, Hitler’s mother’s birthday.

In America, the first Model T Ford car, known as the Tin Lizzie, comes off the production line, replacing the model A.