A Look Back
Livermore began investigating controlled thermonuclear reactions and fusion early in its history
In 1963, a comprehensive, long-range program dealing with the sources and biological effects of human-made radiation was established by the Atomic Energy Commission (AEC) at the Lawrence Radiation Laboratory, Livermore.
The end of World War II heralded an era of population growth throughout the nation and especially in the State of California, where many returning soldiers and their families settled.
In the summer of 1956, a U.S. Navy-sponsored study (Project Nobska) on anti-submarine warfare was held at Woods Hole, Massachusetts.
Sixty years ago in 1960, at Hughes Aircraft Company in Malibu, California, Thomas Maiman fired his solid-state ruby laser, emitting humankind’s first coherent visible light.
On Jan. 21, 1968, an aircraft accident involving a United States Air Force B-52 bomber occurred near Thule Air Base in the Danish territory of Greenland.
On Dec. 10, 1967, Project Gasbuggy was conducted in a sandstone gas-bearing formation in the San Juan Basin near Farmington, New Mexico.
In 1967, Ronald Reagan, former movie star and then newly-elected governor of California, visited the Lawrence Radiation Laboratory in Livermore, California to tour the facility and become more informed about major ongoing projects, including work on national defense.
On Sept. 19, 1957, the University of California Radiation Laboratory, Livermore detonated the first contained underground nuclear explosion, “Rainier,” into a long tunnel beneath a high mesa in the northwest corner of the Nevada Test Site.
In 1981, a select group of U.S. Army officers visited Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory to participate in a series of nuclear wargames unlike any conducted.