Explosions make good television; bigger explosions make even better television. This was realized from the start by Los Angeles’ KTLA television station manager Klaus Landsberg. Taking advantage of KTLA’s monopoly on television coverage west of the Mississippi, he sent a crew to Nevada to cover an announced atomic bomb test.

On this day, February 1st, in 1951, KTLA made the first live broadcast of an atomic explosion, transmitting simultaneously not only to viewers in Los Angeles, but to networks all over the East Coast.

Remote broadcasts were still a long ways away from being perfected in those years. Almost everything in KTLA’s operation was jury-rigged: a chain of transmitters stretching between Nevada and Los Angeles, with engineers for each one using flashlights to communicate their position relative to each other. Despite a few other technical mishaps and a 5:30am West Coast broadcast, many viewers tuned in for the event. It was enough to convince Landsberg to follow up with coverage of another atomic test the following week.