Seventy-five years ago, a group of scientists and soldiers camped out at a previously abandoned ranch in New Mexico, waiting for history to be made. Their mission — to produce the world’s first nuclear bomb — was so top-secret, many of their wives and children weren’t privy to what they were working on. Even their mail and phone calls were monitored.

The world would later know their work as the Manhattan Project. The code name for their first nuclear test, conducted on July 16, 1945, was “Trinity.” It marked the development of the deadliest and most powerful weapon in history — and the beginning of the end of World War II.

But its success was never guaranteed.

Before the test was approved, scientists debated whether the explosion could ignite the atmosphere and destroy life on Earth. The project went ahead after Nobel Laureate Arthur Compton determined the odds of that doomsday scenario were “slightly less” than one-in-3 million.

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In 1943, the team assembled a secret laboratory in the middle of the sweltering desert near Los Alamos, New Mexico, surrounded by scorpions and venomous lizards. The location had to be remote to limit locals to exposure from dangerous radioactive fallout. Scientists and soldiers slept on cots in humble barracks about 10 miles away from the testing site.

Read more: yahoo