Ok, so much for sands.
Let's get serious. While we were driving through the desert, since Ann was the driver, I became the designated navigator. On the maps, I came across
'White Sand Missile Range'. So, what do you think it is?
Here's what I found on the guide book we bought in the bookstore. Excerpt quoted from the guide: 'At 5:29 on the morning of July 16, 1945, a light flashed across the New Mexico desert so bright that it was seen from Arizona to Texas. A blind college girl, riding in a car near Soccoro in those dawn hours, asked what the flash of light was. Unknown to her & to most of the rest of the world at that moment, the light resulted from the explosion of a plutonium bomb, a test known as 'Trinity,' in the Jornada del Muerot sixty-five miles northwest of White Sands. The people present at the test still remember the brilliant light most vividly. That light represented the imminent end of World War II & it changed the world forever. The United States government had decided that this lonely part of New Mexico was ideal terrain for military operations. The Trinity Test Site was located within the Alamogordo Bombing & Gunnery Range, established in 1942, just after the attack on Pearl Harbor. Following the test in 1945 traditional portions of the Tularosa Basin were set aside as White Sands Proving Ground. The gunnery range & proving ground were consolidated & renamed White Sands Missile Range in 1958.'
For more details, please proceed to
WorldwideSchool.org.
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White Sands
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on Jun 21, 2004
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