The French were in Vietnam before the USA, page-6

You reminded me of Australia letting the UK do nuclear tests at Maralinga.

I doubt many people today would know about it.

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The lesser known history of the Maralinga nuclear tests — and what it's like to stand at ground zero

I thought I knew all the details about Maralinga, and the nuclear bomb tests that took place there six decades ago.

But when I set out to visit ground zero, I realised there were parts of this Cold War history I didn't know — like Project Sunshine, which involved exhuming the bodies of babies.

Maralinga is 54 kilometres north-west of Ooldea, in South Australia's remote Great Victoria Desert.Between 1956 and 1963 the British detonated seven atomic bombs at the site; one was twice the size of the bomb dropped on Hiroshima.

There were also the so-called "minor trials" where officials deliberately set fire to or blew up plutonium with TNT — just to see what would happen.

One location called "Kuli" is still off-limits today, because it's been impossible to clean up.


Read more:-
https://www.abc.net.au/news/2020-03-24/maralinga-nuclear-tests-ground-zero-lesser-known-history/11882608


British nuclear tests at Maralinga

Between 1956 and 1963, the United Kingdom conducted seven nuclear tests at the Maralinga site in South Australia, part of the Woomera Prohibited Area about 800 kilometres (500 mi) north west of Adelaide. Two major test series were conducted: Operation Buffalo in 1956 and Operation Antler the following year. Approximate weapon yields ranged from 1 to 27 kilotons of TNT (4 to 100 TJ). The Maralinga site was also used for minor trials, tests of nuclear weapons components not involving nuclear explosions. Kittens were trials of neutron initiators; Rats and Tims measured how the fissile core of a nuclear weapon was compressed by the high explosive shock wave; and Vixens investigated the effects of fire or non-nuclear explosions on atomic weapons. The minor trials, numbering around 550, ultimately generated far more contamination than the major tests.


Read more:-
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/British_nuclear_tests_at_Maralinga