From the first nuclear explosion in 1945 until a moratorium in 1992, the United States conducted 1,054 nuclear tests. Detonated across the U.S.—and on islands in the Pacific Ocean when the bombs were especially destructive (like the 21-kiloton bomb detonated on Bikini Atoll, pictured above)—the consequences are still felt today. “Any person living in the contiguous United States since 1951 has been exposed to radioactive fallout from testing,” one joint study reveals, according to Lesley M. M. Blume for Nat Geo.

Never forget. Our politicians approved all of this.