“A fter the former Soviet Union conducted its first nuclear test in August 1949, the US reevaluated its postwar defense policies. With the US monopoly on atomic weapons broken, military and political leaders chose to diversify the American stockpile by developing thermonuclear and tactical nuclear weapons. One of the more interesting concepts to come out of this period was atomic artillery, which was successfully tested at the Nevada Proving Grounds (now the Nevada Test Site) in May 1953”. – Alan Carr. Photo: Atomic Annie at work during the Upshot-Knothole test series, 1953. (Photo by Los Alamos National Laboratory/US Army)

A leopard runs to at people as they run for cover in Katmandu, Nepal, on April 10, 2013. According to reports, 15 people were injured including three policemen and two officials from the Department of Forest. The leopard was later killed with the help of Nepalese policemen and local media. (Photo by Niranjan Shrestha/Associated Press)

ATTENTION: VISUAL COVERAGE OF SCENES OF INJURY AND DEATH

China has sent its first woman into space on a mission to dock with an orbiting station, the latest step in an ambitious programme to go to the moon and on to Mars.

Photo: China's first female astronaut Liu Yang, waves during a sending off ceremony before she departs for the Shenzhou 9 spacecraft rocket launch pad at the Jiuquan Satellite Launch Center in Jiuquan, China, Saturday, June 16, 2012. China will send its first woman and two other astronauts into space Saturday to work on a temporary space station for about a week, in a key step toward becoming only the third nation to set up a permanent base in orbit. (Photo by Ng Han Guan/AP Photo)

Dark clouds bearing down on the city on April 17, 2011 in Foshan, Guangdong Province of China. According to flood control authorities on Monday, gales as strong as 45.5 meters per second, accompanied by hailstorm, cloudburst and strong wind battered cities including Guangzhou, Foshan, Zhaoqing and Dongguan of south China's Guangdong Province on Sunday, has killed at least 17 people and injured 118. (Photo by ChinaFotoPress/Getty Images)

West German police arrest a young man, one of the angry crowd throwing stones at a bus full of Soviet guards making their way to the Soviet War Memorial, 20th August 1962. The crowd were incensed by the death of 18-year-old Peter Fechter, who was shot while trying to cross the Berlin Wall a few days earlier. (Photo by Central Press/Hulton Archive/Getty Images)

Color dyed rabbits are seen in the markets of the Souq Waqif on January 12, 2011 in Doha, Qatar. (Photo by Robert Cianflone/Getty Images)

Three secondary schoolboys smoking an illicit cigarette in Hyde Park, London. (Photo by Evening Standard/Getty Images). May 1972

Bus 392 stands on the highway running from Beersheva to Eilat, with windows broken following a gun attack on August 18, 2011 near the Israel - Egypt border, Israel. A series of coordinated gun and roadside bomb attacks against miltary and civilian targets near the Israeli - Egyptian border, including an ambush on the bus travellling 20km north of Eilat, are reported to have left 5 dead and many injured. (Photo by Yehuada Ben Itah/Getty Images)