Three technological eras began in 1953: thermonuclear weapons, stored-program computers, and modern genetics.
The new machine was christened MANIAC (Mathematical and Numerical Integrator and Computer) and put to its first test, during the summer of 1951, with a thermonuclear calculation that ran for sixty days nonstop.
The year 1953 was one of frenzied preparations in between. Of the eleven nuclear tests, yielding a total of 252 kilotons, conducted at the Nevada Test Site in 1953, most were concerned not with trying to make large, spectacular explosions, but with understanding how the effects of more modest nuclear explosions could be tailored to trigger a thermonuclear reaction resulting in a deliverable hydrogen bomb.