Summary (TL;DR)
The Tsar Bomba, tested by the Soviet Union on 30 October 1961, remains the most powerful nuclear weapon ever detonated, with a yield of 50 megatons. It was a three-stage thermonuclear bomb designed by Andrei Sakharov and others. The test took place over Novaya Zemlya, dropped from a modified Tu-95V bomber. The fireball was 8 km wide, the mushroom cloud reached 67 km high, and the shockwave circled the Earth three times. The bomb's uranium tamper was replaced with lead to reduce fallout, making it relatively clean despite its power. Politically, it demonstrated Soviet nuclear capability and influenced the 1963 Partial Test Ban Treaty.
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