On this day, October the 30th, in the year of 1961, the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics (U.S.S.R.) detonated the Tsar Bomba (officially called the RDS-220), the world’s most powerful nuclear weapon ever to be used.

During the United States of America (U.S.)-U.S.S.R. Cold War, both nations tried to one up each in multiple facades such as economically, and in this case, militaristically. One way this played out was in a nuclear arms race, leading to both nations striving to have more and more powerful arsenal than the other.

The Tsar Bomba (translating to the “King of Bombs” from Russian into English) was a pinnacle of the race.

3,800 times stronger than “Little Boy” (the name of the atomic bomb used on Hiroshima), it produces a mushroom cloud thirty seven miles high, being able to be seen from hundreds of miles away (Britannica).

If dropped over Woodbridge High School, the Tsar Bomba would roughly yield 1,762,520 deaths and over 5,000,000 injuries and illnesses (NUKEMAP). To see the damage the Tsar Bomba and other bombs would cause in your favorite places, vist the “NUKEMAP”.

While causing mass destruction, it’s cumbersome girth barred it from being used in a practical, swift manner, practically making it a display of Soviet Propaganda.

To read more about the U.S.-U.S.S.R. Cold War, please see “On This Day – October 16th (Cuban Missile Crisis)”.