On July 16, 1945, the world ended. Or at least it seemed that way to residents of the Tularosa Basin in New Mexico. Unbeknownst to local civilians, J. Robert Oppenheimer had chosen their backyard as the proving ground for the world’s first nuclear weapon. The explosion, which U.S. officials publicly claimed to be an accident at a local ammunition depot, tore through the morning sky, leaving a 40…