Why did Britain Build Nuclear Weapons? (Short Animated Documentary)

Britain was third in the race for nuclear weapons. Unlike the much more famous process of development in the USA or USSR, Britain's programme and reasons for developing such weapons is barely understood. So how and why did Britain develop them? To find out watch this short and simple animated history documentary.

A special thanks to all of these Patrons below, without whom the show wouldn't be possible:

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[HistoryMatters]

Hi all. Just to correct myself. I used the term colony to describe Australia. It was actually a Dominion at this time which was a different status. I was just being flippant but I should be a bit more careful.

[adrielsebastian]

A nuclear weapons programme codenamed "High Explosive Research" is the most British thing ever

[jakestriker]

The Soviets had better access to the Manhattan project than the brits lol

[FourOf]

"Why did Britain build nuclear weapons?"

you can come up with a faster way to boil water for tea I'd love to hear it

[Musikur]

Fun fact, America also pulled this "let's share our notes, thanks, actually no you can't see ours now" business on supersonic flight and rockets as well.

[mattwho]

Jim Hacker: “Why do we need trident?”
Humphrey: “To defend Britain.”
Hacker “From the soviets?”
Humphrey: “No from the French!”

[Eboreg]

UK: "Hey, Australia, can we nuke one of your unpopulated areas?"

Australia: "Anything to kill the spiders."

[mbogucki]

So this raises the question; How and Why did France build Nuclear Weapons?

[bobing]

0:03 lol I just noticed that when the bomb explodes, the guy without sunglasses becomes blind.
Funny detail

[bananawaltz]

The reason why Britain was only 3rd to nuclear bombs was because James Bisonette cut funding in favor of this channel’s Patreon.

[koalabrownie]

Yeah Fun Fact, same exchange of information happened between Britain and the US with regards to supersonic flight development. In that case the US again did not reciprocate and then took credit for breaking the sound barrier even though their success hinged on British technology. And in fact the US supersonic jet looked like a carbon copy of what the Brits had already made.

[ImperialJustinian]

You missed the best part; At a small committee meeting in october 1946 on whether or not to go ahead with creating a nuclear bomb, they were about to decide against it on grounds of cost when Ernest Bevin, Foreign Secretary, arrived late from a meeting with the US Secretary of State and declared that they needed it and "We've got to have the bloody Union Jack flying on top of it". Apparently he did not appreciate how the Secretary of State talked to him.

[thequeenofspades]

Britain: "So there's all of my research. Are you going to send me yours now?"
America: "Yes. But also no"

[aarshabhdevsingh]

Honestly never thought someone’s actually gonna make a video about this topic thanks man.🔥

[jihadsadi]

-UK : "HiGh ExpLOsIvE ReSeArCh "

-Soviet spy : understood, nothing to see here, have a nice day.

[mrglayden]

What I really like about this is your probably one of the only people ive seen on youtube that, when highlighting a map of britian, doesnt forget about us here in the channel islands

[prezzyjim]

Some say the site chosen to nuke within Australia was a vital Emu breeding ground...

[eternalgreed]

0:04 poor guy didn't wear a sunglass and is now blind

[LaKravenStudios]

You missed something important (in my opinion)

The reason the U.S. resumed collaboration with us (the British) in respect of nuclear weapons development was to do with the Hydrogen bomb.

See, early nukes were fairly primitive (despite their destruction) and yielded only a small percentage of their energy release (this destructive) potential.

The U.S. developed and successfully tested a high yield (megaton) hydrogen bomb, as did the Soviets.

We (the UK) however, couldn’t get the implosion trigger to function properly as quickly as was necessary to negotiate the nuclear agenda with the Americans, and so we basically faked it.
We detonated a very large, very dirty conventional (low yield) nuclear weapon, such that it would measure an explosive force of around one megaton.

When this was brought up with the Americans, they insisted on reviewing the designs for our Hydrogen bomb, and only let the UK back in to the nuclear agenda because, despite cheating the results, our science was indeed sound and stood up to academic scrutiny.

Enjoy knowing even more 🙏

[crashfaff]

UK gave so much information to USA on nukes, supersonic aircraft etc. and what they get back in return loans with interest for 60 years.