5 of the biggest bombs to ever explode compared to the Hiroshima-bomb

Spoiler: The Hiroshima-bomb is tiny compared to what have been made since.

The bomb that ended WW2

It might not be true, but nonetheless, the Little Boy-bomb, that was dropped on Hiroshima, Japan in 1945, is said to have shortened WW2 by several years.

135,000 lives

Little Boy had a blast yield of 15 kilotons and is said to have cost approx. 135,000 lives.

66,000 died in the initial blast with tens of thousands succumbing to the long-term effects of radiation sickness.

Tiny compared to tests

There is no doubt the drop of Little Boy was a world-changing event – but the 15 kilotons yield is actually tiny compared to some of the other bombs tested during the Cold war.

5. Ivy King (USA): 500 kilotons

Ivy King was the largest pure-fission nuclear bomb ever tested.

The bomb was tested by the United States’ Truman administration as part of Operation Ivy – a series of tests involved the development of very powerful nuclear weapons in response to the nuclear weapons program of the Soviet Union.

Ivy King yielded 500 kilotons of TNT – more than 33 times the power of Little Boy,

4. 1957 Orange Herald (UK): 720 kilotons

Orange Herald was a British nuclear weapon, tested on 31 May 1957.

At the time it was reported as an H-bomb, although in fact it was a large boosted fission weapon and remains to date, the largest fission device ever detonated.

With a yield of 720 kilotons, Orange Herald was 48 times as powerful as Little Boy.

3. Ivy Mike (USA): 10 megatons

Ivy Mike was the codename given to the first full-scale test of a thermonuclear device.

It was detonated in 1952 and yielded 10,4 megatons of TNT – nearly 700 times more than Little Boy.

2. Castle Bravo (USA): 15 megatons

Detonated on 1 March 1954, the device remains the most powerful nuclear device ever detonated by the United States.

Castle Bravo was the first in a series of high-yield thermonuclear weapon design tests and yielded 15 megatons of TNT – 1000 times the power of Little Boy.

1. Tsar Bomba (USSR): 50 megatons

The Tsar Bomba is the single most physically powerful device ever deployed on Earth, the most powerful nuclear bomb tested and the largest human-made explosion in history.

It yielded 50 megatons – more than 3,333 times Little Boy.