The Atomic Age Arrives: North Dakota and the Cold War

HERITAGE CENTER
GALLERY MAP

The atomic bombs that the United States dropped on Hiroshima and Nagasaki, Japan in 1945 marked the end of World War II and the beginning of a new period in history – the arrival of the atomic age. This temporary exhibit explores how a frightening new age of atomic weapons put North Dakota on the front lines of a global Cold War.

Almost as soon as World War II ended, the former allies in the war divided into new opposing powers: the capitalist West (led by the United States) and the communist East (led by the Soviet Union. By 1949 the Soviet Union had developed its own nuclear weapons, and the two global powers settled into a new form of warfare, known as the Cold War, that used economic competition, intelligence, technology, propaganda, and other means to seek advantage over each other.

North Dakota’s position along the northern border of the United States, and its relatively sparse population, made it an ideal location for new military facilities that could intercept an attack from the Soviet Union or serve as a base for an attack by the United States. In the 1950s the United States Air Force built two new air bases in North Dakota at Grand Forks and Minot. Both bases housed nuclear-armed bombers and eventually oversaw 150 nuclear missile silos each.

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location

Sperry Gallery - North Dakota Heritage Center

hours

Exhibit galleries are open Monday through Friday 8:00 a.m. to 5:00 p.m.; Saturday and Sunday 10:00 a.m-5:00 p.m., year round.

The Heritage Center, including exhibit galleries, is closed on New Year's Day, Easter, Thanksgiving, and Christmas.


exhibit dates

November 2, 2007 - November 11, 2009

cost

No Admission Fee