A Chronology of the Atomic Age
A Chronology of the Atomic Age
The Effects of Nuclear Physics on the Genre of Science Fiction Literature and Film
(Note: This was originally written in 1996 as a possible magazine submission. While I’ve proofed it a bit, it has not been updated to reflect history since then.)
The Atomic Age has had an incalculable effect on the world at large. Nearly every facet of human existence has been touched by the constant possibility that human existence might be brought to an abrupt end by one very specific human endeavor — the building of massive quantities of nuclear weapons. The atomic bomb has cast a long and lingering shadow over the whole of human affairs. Literature, science, art, politics, and the very fabric of our collective unconscious has been disturbed, distorted and in some cases destroyed by this penultimate example of the human quest for knowledge and power. The following chronology is an attempt to illuminate the origins of the Atomic Age and how it has effected science fiction literature and film. In the course of reading through this chronology it should also become obvious how science fiction has effected and predicted the Atomic Age as well.
General events in history, science, and science fiction literature are included to help place the entries in their greater historical contexts. Works of science fiction that readers may not be familiar with are briefly described.
450 B.C. – Leucippus of Miletus introduces the idea of the atom.
1595- First known performance of Christopher Marlow’s play The Tragical History of Dr. Faustus. The first inklings of the morality of knowledge at any price and the root of the Mad Scientist archetype.
1798- Belgian optician E.G. Robertson invents his Phantasmagorie, an advancement on the old Magic Lantern (the origin of the idea behind motion pictures).
1808- Part I of Johann Wolfgang Goethe’s play Faust is published. An eloquent version of the Faust tale with the questions of the morality of unlimited power and knowledge greatly expanded over its predecessors.
1818- Mary Wollstonecraft Shelley writes the first science fiction novel Frankenstein. The Mad Scientist archetype in full and perfect conception. Additionally raises the idea, to be repeated ad nauseam, that the creations of scientists may come back to haunt them.
1832- Part II of Goethe’s Faust is published. The more poetic conclusion to Goethe’s duologue.
1839- Development of Photography.
1861- The American Civil War begins
1876- Alexander Graham Bell patents the telephone.
1882- The use of electric light begins in the United States.
1888- George Eastman Kodak develops the first Kodak box camera using paper negative film soon replaced by celluloid.
1891- Thomas Edison and W.K.L. Dickson invent the Kinetograph – the first motion picture camera.
1894- Marconi constructs his first radio.
1895- (i) Robert Cromie’s short story Crack of Doom, predicts the destruction of the world by massively destructive bombs.
- (ii) Auguste and Louis Lumiere invent the Cinematographie, a camera and projector, using it to create short films like Workers Leaving the Lumiere Factory.
- (iii) H.G. Wells’s novel The Time Machine .
- (iv) Wilhelm Roentgen discovers X-rays.
1896- Radioactivity discovered by the French Physicist Antoine Becquerel.
1987- British physicist J.J. Thomson discovers the electron.
1898- (i) H.G. Wells’s novel The War of the Worlds.
- (ii) Radium is discovered by the Curies.
1899- British physicist Ernest Rutherford discovers that radioactivity contains alpha and beta rays.
1900- (i) U.S. Navy purchases the first modern submarine.
- (ii) Max Ernst Ludwig Plank proposes a new quantum theory, i.e. that bodies which radiate energy do so in discrete parcels he terms quantums.
- (iii) Paul Villard discovers gamma rays in radioactivity.
1901- President McKinley is assassinated.
1903- (i) The first sustained manned flight is accomplished by the Wright brothers.
- (ii) The auto industry begins in the United States.
1904- Marie Curie discovers and isolates radium and polonium in uranium ore.
1905- Einstein develops his theory of relativity.
1909- Physicist Fredrick Soddy publishes a scientific paper on intra-atomic energy.
1910- Thomas Edison’s company produces the first film version of Mary Shelley’s Frankenstein.
1911- Lord Rutherford puts forth the idea that the atom contains a central nucleus, aka, nuclear theory.
1913- (i) Lord Rutherford announces that one proton is the nucleus of the hydrogen atom.
- (ii) Niels Bohr shows how energy is produced by changes in an electron’s orbit of an atom and explains the basic structure of the atom.
- (iii) Geiger counter first used to detect radioactivity.
1914- (i) World War I begins in Europe.
- (ii) H.G. Wells’ short story The World Set Free. Using Soddy’s paper (see 1909) as a basis, Wells describes a future world run by atomic energy which spirals into chaos and cataclysm wrought by atomic bombs.
1915- Einstein publishes his General Theory of Relativity explaining how gravity effects light and mass distorts space.
1916- (i) Homunculus directed by Otto Rippert for Deutsch Bioscope.
- (ii) Hugo Gernsbeck publishes an article in Electrical Experimenter that predicts the advent of nuclear warfare and its effects on war, politics and civilization.
1917- The United States enters World War One.
1919- (i) World War One ends.
- (ii) Commercial air service begins.
1920- (i) Radio broadcasting begins in the United States.
- (ii) Women gain the vote in the United States.
1921- First performance of Karel Capek’s play R.U.R. Introduces the word robot.
1923- Weird Tales magazine launched.
1924- Electrons shown to behave as both waves and particles.
1926- (i) The film, Metropolis directed by Fritz Lang.
- (ii) Hugo Gernsbeck founds Amazing Stories (magazine).
- (iii) Robert A. Goddard of the United States successfully launches a liquid fuel rocket.
- (iv) Telephone service between New York and London established.
- (v) Erwin Schrodinger establishes Wave Mechanics describing the wave motion of electrons.
1927- (i) The first film with synchronized sound, The Jazz Singer .
- (ii) Karel Capek’s short story The Absolute at Large. Atomic energy as the opposition of God’s will leads to humanities’ self destruction.
- (iii) The Big Bang Theory of the universe’s formation first proposed by Monsignor Georges Henri Joseph Édouard Lemaître.
- (iv) Charles Lindbergh makes the first cross Atlantic flight.
- (v) Heisenberg Uncertainty Principle put forth. Every observation affects the probability of the outcome of that observation.
1928- (i) First television broadcasts made.
- (ii) Edmond Hamilton’s short story The Comet Doom. Alien race develops artificial body that runs on atomic power to house their brains.
1929- (i) Hugo Gernsbeck first uses the term “Science Fiction.”
- (ii) The Wall Street stock market crashes.
- (iii) Graf Zepplin flies around the world.
1930- (i) Astounding Stories of Super Science (magazine) launched. Later becomes Astounding Stories.
- (ii) Olaf Stapledon’s Last and First Men published.
- (iii) C.W. Diffin’s short story The Power and the Glory. Early warning of the military possibilities of atomic energy.
- (iv) First cyclotron particle accelerator developed in U.S..
1931- (i) Universal Pictures produces Frankenstein directed by James Whale.
- (ii) Heavy hydrogen (deuterium) discovered.
1932- (i) Aldous Huxley’s novel Brave New World.
- (ii) First nuclear reaction obtained in a particle accelerator.
- (iii) Neutrons discovered.
1935- The Bride of Frankenstein directed by James Whale for Universal.
1936- (i) Things to Come directed by William Cameron Menzies for London Films and written by H.G. Wells. Humanity rebuilds itself after a worldwide war destroys nearly everything.
- (ii) First Flash Gordon serials appear.
1937- John W. Campbell Jr. becomes editor of Astounding Stories and changes name to Astounding Science Fiction.
1938- Arthur J. Burke’s novels Survival and Exodus. The eponymously titled books deal with humanity’s struggle after a world cataclysm.
1939- (i) Orson Welles’s radio broadcast of H.G. Wells’s War of the Worlds starts a nationwide panic on Halloween night.
- (ii) First Buck Rogers movie serial appears.
- (iii) Otto Hahn achieves the first nuclear fission reaction obtained by splitting an uranium atom.
- (iv) World War Two begins in Europe.
- (v) Einstein warns the President of the U.S. of the possibility of an atomic bomb in hopes of beating German research.
1940- (i) Robert A. Heinlein’s short story Blow Ups Happen. Life at an atomic power plant.
- (ii) A.E. van Vogt’s novel Slan. Mutant boy must struggle to become accepted part of a human dominated society after holocaust.
- (iii) First artificial element, Technetium.
1941- (i) The United States enters World War Two.
- (ii) Robert A. Heinlein’s short story Solution Unsatisfactory. Radiation bomb used to force Germany to surrender.
- (iii) First jet aircraft tested.
1942- (i) The Germans develop the V-2 rocket bomb.
- (ii) Bernard Newman’s short story The Secret Weapon. Missile/bomb used to end WWII. No mention of atomic explosion for national security reasons.
- (iii) Lester del Rey’s short story Nerves. (Expanded to novel length in 1956) Story of a power plant that explodes.
- (iv) First nuclear reactor built in Chicago.
1944- Cleve Cartmill’s short story Deadline. Predicts the atomic bomb and its consequences with deadly accuracy.
1945- (i) Germany surrenders.
- (ii) The atomic age begins with the United States dropping two atomic bombs on Hiroshima and Nagasaki. Japan surrenders, bringing an end to World War Two.
1946- (i) Television networks begin broadcasting in the United States.
- (ii) First real computer, ENIAC, begins use.
- (iii) Theodore Sturgeon’s short story Memorial. Scientist explodes atomic bomb to serve a tombstone and reminder for humanity.
- (iv) Paul Carter’s short story The Last Objective. Life underground after an atomic war.
- (iv) Rog Philip’s short story Atom War. Story of atomic war that predicts the down side of MAD (Mutual Assured Destruction) i.e. when the other side strikes back.
1947- (i) First aircraft to break the sound barrier.
- (ii) Theodore Sturgeon’s short story Thunder and Roses. The United States is destroyed by nuclear attack, but the hero stops a retaliation to save the world for future generations.
- (iii) Will F. Jenkin’s (aka: Murray Leinster) novel Murder of the USA. Sneak attack of atomic missiles on the US. Author clearly implies the soon to be national defense strategy of Mutual Assured Destruction.
- (iv) Leonard Engel and Emmanuel S. Pillar’s novel World A flame. The title says it all.
- (v) Henry Kutter’s short story Jesting Pilot. City protected by force-field hundreds of years after and atomic war.
- (vi) Poul Anderson’s first short story Tomorrow’s Children. Scientists struggle to eliminate mutations from humanity after nuclear war.
- (vii) Raymond F. Jones’s short story The Children’s Room. Life in a world of constant mutations.
- (viii) Britain builds its first nuclear power plant.
1948- (i) First transistor invented.
- (ii) J. Jefferson Farjeon’s novel Death of a World.
- (iii) Russel Fearn’s short story After the Atom. Thrown into the future by an atomic explosion the heros are hunted down by the future “mutated” humanity.
- (iv) Judith Merril’s short story That Only a Mother. Couple survives atomic nightmare to cope with the birth of their mutant child.
- (v) Ray Bradbury’s short story The Shape of Things. Mother sees nothing wrong when her mutant child is born in the shape of a pyramid.
1949- (i) George E. Stewart’s novel Earth Abides.
- (ii) Aldous Huxley’s novel Ape and Essence. Effects of atomic war on the environment (Gaia) explored.
- (iii) Philip K. Dick’s short story Final Command. Robots fight a nuclear war while humans retreat to space.
- (iv) Theodore Sturgeon’s novel Prodigy. Humanity destroys itself with atomic power to be replaced by superior race.
1951- (i) The Day the Earth Stood Still directed by Robert Wise for Twentieth Century Fox.
- (ii) Edmond Hamilton’s novel The City at the World’s End. Small town thrust into the far future as the result of an atomic explosion.
- (iii) Five directed by Arch Oboler. Five survivors of atomic holocaust rapidly become two.
- (iv) First electricity obtained from a breeder reactor in U.S..
1952- (i) First hydrogen bomb exploded at Eniwetok Atoll by the United States.
- (ii) Walter M. Miller Jr.’s short story Dumb Waiter. Automated city lives on after humans have perished in nuclear war.
1953- (i) War of the Worlds directed by Byron Haskins for Paramount, produced by George Pal and adapted from the H.G. Wells novel.
- (ii) John Jakes’s short story With Wings. Mutant child born with wings.
- (iii) Structure of DNA analyzed.
1954- (i) Arthur C. Clarke’s short story If I Forget Thee, Oh Earth.…. Moon colony struggles on long after Earth has been destroyed by nuclear war.
- (ii) 20,000 Leagues Under the Sea directed by Richard Fleisher for Walt Disney Pictures.
- (iii) Them directed by Gordon Douglas for Warner Bros.. Giant atomically mutated ants attack!
- (iv) Color television begins in the United States.
- (v) George Holt’s (E.C. Tubb) short story Emergency Exit. Remaining humans after apocalypse prejudicially slaughter mutants who might help re-create the world.
1955- (i)This Island Earth directed by Joseph Newman for Universal.
- (ii) First commercial use of computers begins.
- (iii) Invasion of the Body Snatchers directed by Don Siegel for Allied Artists.
- (iv) Robert Abernathy’s short story Single Combat. Man attempts to destroy future city single handedly with an atomic bomb.
- (v) John Wyndham’s short story Chrysalids. Mutants and humans battle after an apocalypse.
1956- Lester del Rey’s novel Nerves. (Expanded from his short story: see 1942)
1957- (i) The Incredible Shrinking Man directed by Jack Arnold for Universal. Irradiated man begins to shrink until he is no more.
- (ii) The Amazing Colossal Man directed by Bert J. Gordon for AIP. Man is irradiated and begins to grow and attacks Las Vagas.
- (iii) Soviets launch Sputnick, the first artificial satellite into orbit followed shortly by Sputnick II with the dog Liaka on board.
- (iv) Nevil Shute’s novel On the Beach. Survivors of a nuclear war live out their last days in Australia before a cloud of radiation sweeps in.
1958- Peter George’s short story Red Alert. (Expanded to the novel Dr. Strangelove, see 1963)
1959- (i) On the Beach directed by Stanley Kramer for United Artists from the novel by Nevil Shute (see 1957).
- (ii) Mordecai Roshwald’s short story Level Seven. Drama in an underground military base during a nuclear war.
- (iii) Russian probe Lunik I touches down on the moon.
- (iv) Pat Frank’s novel Alas Babylon. Humanity must put things back together after World War Three.
1960- (i) Walter M. Miller’s novel Canticle for Leibowitz. Catholic monks preserve the knowledge of the ages after nuclear devastation.
- (ii) The laser is invented.
1961- (i) Manned space flight begun in the U.S.S.R.. Yuri Gagarin is first human in space.
- (ii) Day the Earth Caught Fire directed by Val Guest for Allied Artists. Nuclear test knocks Earth out of its orbit and sends it toward the moon.
1962- (i) First communications satellite launched.
- (ii) Cuban missile crisis.
- (iii) Eugene Burdick’s novel Fail-Safe. (Filmed in 1964)
- (iv) Lester del Rey’s novel Eleventh Commandment. Humanity struggles to remain genetically free from mutations after nuclear war.
1963- (i) La Jetee (short film) directed by Chris Marker. Man sent back in time after a nuclear war to gather information.
- (ii) Dr. Strangelove directed by Stanley Kubrick for Hawk Films. Based on Peter George’s novel (See 1958). Black comedy about a nuclear attack intentionally launched by a mad US general in order to provoke World War III. The Attack triggers a Soviet computer attached to a doomsday bomb that destroys the world. It’s a comedy. Really.
- (iii) The Lord of the Flies directed by Peter Brook for Allen Hodgdon Productions. Children trapped on an Island after a nuclear attack revert to the worst stages of human evolution.
- (iv) Graham Greene’s novel A Discovery in the Woods.
1964- (i) J. G. Ballard’s novel The Burning World.
- (ii) Robert A. Heinlein’s Farnham’s Freehold.
- (iii) Fail Safe directed by Sidney Lumet based in Burdick’s novel (1962). After accidental nuclear attack president of US must bomb New York to save the world.
- (iv) Seven Days in May directed by John Frankenheimer. President must thwart a military coup after he signs a nuclear non-proliferation agreement with Soviets.
1965- (i) The War Game directed by Peter Watkins. Realistic portrayal of the effects of nuclear war on England.
- (ii) Crack in the World directed by Andrew Marton. Dying scientist explodes atomic bomb at earth’s center to destroy the world.
1966- D.F. Jones’s short story Colossus.. US super defense computer links with Soviet version to take over the world. (Adapted to film in 1969).
1968- (i) 2001: A Space Odyssey directed by Stanley Kubrick for MGM written by Arthur C. Clarke simultaneously in novel form.
- (ii) Planet of the Apes directed by Franklin J. Schaffner for 20th Century Fox.
1969- (i) Beneath the Planet of the Apes directed by Ted Post for 20th Century Fox.
- (ii) Colossus, the Forbin Project directed by Joseph Sargent for Universal. Based on the D.F. Jones short story. (see 1966)
- (iii) United States successfully lands two men on the moon.
- (iv) Harlan Ellison’s short story A Boy and His Dog. Symbiotic telepathic relationship between boy and dog becomes cannibalistic when boy meets girl in post-apocalyptic world. (Adapted to film 1975.)
1970- First floppy disks for computers.
1971-The Omega Man directed by Boris Sagal for Warner Bros..
1972- Robert Merle’s novel Malevil. Humanity survives in small pockets like the wine cellar of an ancient castle after World War III.
1973- The United States Skylab goes into orbit.
1975- (i) A Boy and a Dog directed by L.Q. Jones from Harlan Ellison’s short story (See 1969).
- (ii) Video recorders introduced for home use.
- (iii) Soviet and United States space craft, Soyuz and Apollo, meet and dock in orbit.
- (iv) Samuel R. Delany’s novel Dhalgren.
1976- (i) Viking Lander touches down on Mars.
- (ii)Logan’s Run directed by Michael Anderson for United Artists.
1977- Star Wars by George Lucas. The film’s title later co-opted by the Reagan administration to describe a defense initiative to protect the US from Soviet missiles with lasers in orbit.
1979- (i) Mad Max directed by George Miller (Australia).
- (ii) The China Syndrome directed by James Bridges for Columbia. Executive at a nuclear power plant uncovers evidence of an accident and takes the steps to make it public.
- (iii) Three Mile Island, Pennsylvania is the site of the first major accident at a nuclear power plant. 144,000 people evacuated from the area, but little radiation is released.
1980- U.S. space probe Voyager I reaches Saturn.
1981- (i) The space shuttle Columbia , the first reusable space craft is launched in the United States.
- (ii) IBM introduces its first personal computer.
1982- Malevil directed Christen de Chalonge. This French/German production is adapted from the 1972 novel by Robert Merle.
1983- (i)War Games directed by John Badham for MGM-UA. Young kid accidentally breaks into main defense department computer and nearly starts World War III.
- (ii) Silkwood directed by Mike Nichols for Paramount. Story of Karen Silkwood, a nuclear power plant worker who begins to investigate company practices and ends up dead. Based on a true story.
- (iii) The Day After directed by Nicholas Mayer for ABC. TV mini-series that depicts the struggle of life in the US after nuclear holocaust.
1984- (i) Whitley Strieber and James Cunetka’s War Day. Journalist travels across the United States after World War III.
- (ii) Terminator directed by James Cameron. Man travels back in time to save a woman from being killed by a cyborg sent by the future computers that caused World War III in order to rule the world.
1986- (i) Space Shuttle Challenger explodes.
- (ii) Major accident occurs at the Chernobyl nuclear power plant in the Ukraine. Radioactive clouds sweep over much of Europe. 30 firefighters die in the first few weeks. Estimated death tolls range from 6500 to 45,000. Large areas of Ukrainian land made uninhabitable for hundreds of years.
1987- (i) Akira (animated) directed by Katsuhiro Otomo for ICA. Nuclear weapon detonated to thwart experiment in creating a super consciousness.
- (ii) Reagan- Gorbachev summit reduces intermediate range nuclear weapons.
1989- (i) The Abyss directed by James Carpenter for 20th Century Fox. Deep sea oil rig diverted to retrieve lost nuclear warheads.
- (ii) Berlin Wall comes down and Germany reunited.
- (iii) Communist governments fall in eastern bloc countries and the Soviet Union begins to dissolve into its component states, each attempting to assert its independence. This becomes the effective end of the cold war, though weapons of mass destruction for defense will continue to be built.
1991- (i) Terminator 2: Judgment Day directed by James Cameron for Carloco. Cyborg sent back in time to protect future leader of revolt against computer network that will cause World War III to eliminate humanity.
- (ii) Full dissolution of the Soviet Union. Boris Yeltsin elected President of Russia. The Cold War is dead, but the threat of nuclear disaster increases as unstable countries maintaining nuclear stockpiles become independent of Russia. The Ukraine and Kazakhstan agree to destroy their weapons, but rumors circulate of warheads gone missing.
1994- Mary Shelley’s Frankenstein directed by Kenneth Branagh.
1995- (i) “Internet” and “World Wide Web” become house hold names.
- (ii) The US and the United Nations try to strong arm North Korea into abandoning its nuclear weapons program to no avail.
1996- India refuses to sign a treaty banning nuclear testing in order to keep its nuclear options open. The US signs the document in the hopes of entering a new era of the Atomic Age.
