Feds declassify hundreds of nuclear weapons movies

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In a quest for Cold War military superiority, the United States detonated more than 1,000 nuclear weapons.

Government researchers blew up many of the bombs on the ground and others in ocean atolls. Yet as threats moved into space and concerns about fallout increased — material that's sucked into a blast becomes radioactive — the US exploded 210 of the terrifying devices high in the atmosphere.

Thousands of films of such blasts, made from 1945 through 1962, were analyzed then locked away in high-security vaults. It's likely no one has seen the footage for decades.

But on March 14, after more than 65 years of collecting dust, the US has declassified 750 of the high-speed films for the first time — and released dozens of the digital scans on YouTube.

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