Other than a few lost tribes in the Amazon people are aware of nuclear bombs.  We know some things, like which countries have the capability, which countries want the capability, which countries we do not want to have the capability, and which countries have nuclear warheads mounted on intercontinental ballistic missiles.  All scary things by themselves.  But nuclear bombs were not created in a vacuum.  First there was theory, then construction, then testing to see if the thing worked as designed.  Every new country to get the bomb had to test it to verify to themselves and others that they had the capability.  After all, what good is a nuclear bomb if no one knows you have it?

So here is the question:  How many nuclear bomb tests were done between 1945 and 1998?  Keep in mind that the purpose of the bomb is to create a really big bang – something worthy of a peace loving country such as the United States.  So how many really big bangs were necessary to secure nuclear stature by egotistical countries?

As noted at the web site Memolition:

Japanese artist Isao Hashimoto has created a beautiful, undeniably scary time-lapse map of the 2053 nuclear explosions which have taken place between 1945 and 1998, beginning with the Manhattan Project’s “Trinity” test near Los Alamos and concluding with Pakistan’s nuclear tests in May of 1998. This leaves out North Korea’s two alleged nuclear tests in this past decade (the legitimacy of both of which is not 100% clear).

Check this out for dramatic affect:

This video puts the whole nuclear testing thing in a new perspective.