Operation Grapple was a set of four British nuclear weapons test of early atomic bombs and hydrogen bombs carried out in 1957 and 1958 at Malden Island and Kiritimati in the Gilbert and Ellice Islands in the Pacific Ocean as part of the British hydrogen bomb programme. Nine nuclear explosions were initiated, culminating in the United Kingdom becoming the third recognised possessor of thermonuclear weapons and the restoration of the nuclear Special Relationship with the United States with the 1958 US-UK Mutual Defence Agreement.

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