On 3 October 1952 , under the code-name " Operation Hurricane " , the first British nuclear device was successfully detonated in the Monte Bello Islands off the west coast of Australia . The Sputnik crisis and the development of the British hydrogen bomb led to the Atomic Energy Act being amended in 1958 , and to a resumption of the nuclear Special Relationship between America and Britain under the 1958 US – UK Mutual Defence Agreement
Operation Hurricane
Operation Hurricane
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