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.
A Look Back
![Members of the nuclear clean-up crew at work near Thule Air Base, 1968.](/sites/default/files/styles/news_item_image/public/2020-10/1898a29f-1e40-0a1c-2935-005f2a3f8726_0.jpg?h=f967cf33&itok=Xbk4KeC3)
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.
![Livermore mechanical technicians pose in front of the gas recirculation plant they built, December 1967.](/sites/default/files/styles/news_item_image/public/2019-12/Gasbuggy_Christmas_GLB-6712-9148_0.jpg?h=4802d070&itok=a96AyrTR)
On Dec. 10, 1967, Project Gasbuggy was conducted in a sandstone gas-bearing formation in the San Juan Basin near Farmington, New Mexico.
![Teller and Reagan](/sites/default/files/styles/news_item_image/public/2019-11/1b3bc247-34fc-6f6d-d110-5fe75ece5621.jpg?h=a04d7db3&itok=J3nEGKmN)
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.
![B&W photo of men walking at Nevada Test Site](/sites/default/files/styles/news_item_image/public/2019-10/76a75886-3894-f49e-5580-fc8a2181cafb.jpg?h=bb4eba14&itok=joidG27e)
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.
![Two men looking at screens](/sites/default/files/styles/news_item_image/public/2019-08/Janus%20model.png?h=b842be80&itok=xPxiUN7Y)
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.
![Livermore physicist Nicholas Christofilos describes Operation Argus.](/sites/default/files/styles/news_item_image/public/2019-07/Operation%20Argus.jpg?h=3945a48c&itok=iilUMk-0)
In 1958, the United States conducted a set of nuclear tests, codenamed ARGUS, to determine whether they could interfere with communications and weapons performance.
![Artist's conception of a nuclear-excavated canal](/sites/default/files/styles/news_item_image/public/2019-06/0952654f-42d5-5b28-3fbd-25c204e37887.jpg?h=42f477ff&itok=RMEC6uAb)
“Project Dugout” was intended to explore the use of nuclear explosives for large-scale earth excavation projects, such as the creation of harbors and canals.
![Harold Brown (right) and Edward Teller](/sites/default/files/styles/news_item_image/public/2019-01/brown_and_teller_june_1960_0.jpg?h=ece8fc72&itok=R0buYKJE)
Physicist, former Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory Director Harold Brown left an indelible mark
![Underground cavity formed by nuclear explosion](/sites/default/files/styles/news_item_image/public/2018-06/Project%20Gnome.jpg?h=0da9aafe&itok=qKR9eU5m)
The Atomic Energy Commission established the Plowshare Program in June 1957 to explore the peaceful uses of nuclear energy.