Summary and Key Points: On November 6, 1971, the U.S. conducted its largest underground nuclear test, the five-megaton Cannikin shot, on Amchitka Island, Alaska. The test was for a warhead intended ...

Here’s What You Need to Remember: One last controversy rose up from the aftershocks of Cannikin. The success of the W-71 weapon design later inspired weaponeers to consider another nuclear-powered ...

Amchitka Island sits at the midway point on the great arc of Alaska’s Aleutian Islands, less than 900 miles across the Bering Sea from the coast of Russia. Amchitka, a spongy landscape of maritime ...