The first V-2 rocket lands on London, killing three people in Chiswick

Japanese pilots fly the first of World War II's suicide or kamikaze missions

Napalm, used to bomb a crowded part of Tokyo, creates a firestorm in which 80,000 die

A US destroyer is sunk by a baka, a rocket-propelled version of a kamikaze attack

US scientists succeed in exploding an atom bomb at Alamogordo, a test site in the New Mexican desert

An atom bomb is dropped on Hiroshima, destroying four square miles of the city and killing 80,000 people

A second atom bomb is dropped from a US plane, this time over Nagasaki

The first of about 20 US tests of atomic and hydrogen bombs is carried out on Bikini Atoll, in the Pacific

The first Soviet atomic bomb, called by the Americans Joe One, is successfully tested in Kazakhstan

In response to the Soviet atom bomb, President Truman announces a crash programme to develop a hydrogen bomb

The first hydrogen bomb is successfully tested by the US at Enewetak Atoll in the Marshall Islands

The first Soviet hydrogen bomb is successfully tested at the Semipalatinsk Test Site in Kazakhstan

US intelligence reveals nuclear missile bases under construction in Cuba, causing an international crisis

A deal between President Kennedy and Soviet premier Khrushchev defuses the Cuban missile crisis

The SALT 1 treaty is signed by the US and USSR, limiting anti-ballistic missiles

President Reagan proposes a Strategic Defence Initiative (SDI) against nuclear attack

Iraqi dictator Saddam Hussein uses chemical weapons against the Kurds of northern Iraq

The Provisional IRA announces a formal end to armed conflict and orders units to dump all their weapons

North Korea test-fires seven missiles, of varying ranges and with varying success

North Korea announces that it has tested a nuclear weapon

China carries out a successful test of a ground-based missile that can destroy satellites in orbit

North Korea agrees to begin shutting down its nuclear facilities in return for an ongoing programme of fuel aid

The European Union imposes an oil embargo on Iran to deter efforts to achieve a nuclear weapon

Syria accepts a joint Russian and US proposal that all their chemical weapons should be identified and destroyed within a very tight deadline

North Korea conducts its fifth and reportedly biggest nuclear test