The Atomic Age began at exactly 5.30 Mountain War Time on the morning of July 15, 1945, on a stretch of semi-desert land about 50 airline miles from Alamogordo, New Mexico. And just at that instance there rose from the bowels of the earth a light not of this world, the light of many suns in one. … At first it was a giant column that soon took the shape of a supramundane mushroom.
William L. Laurence on the first atomic explosion in New Mexico, 16 Jul 1945, New York Times (26 Sep 1945).