Today in Labor History February 18, 1955: The U.S. launched Operation Teapot at the Nevada Nuclear Test Site. Teapot included 14 nuclear bomb tests. Wasp was the first, detonated on February 18. It had a yield of 1.2 kilotons. During shot Wasp, ground forces participated in Exercise Desert Rock VI. This included an armored task force moving to within 3,000 ft of ground zero, while the mushroom cloud was still growing. From 1945 through 1962, the U.S. conducted 230 atmospheric nuclear weapons tests, with approximately 235,000 military personnel participating. Most were enlisted men, from the navy. However, millions of people were exposed to the fallout from U.S. nuclear weapons tests in the southwest of the U.S. and the Marshall Islands. University of Arizona economist Keith Meyers estimates that radioactive fallout was responsible for 340,000 to 690,000 American deaths from 1951 to 1973.
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