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Since their public debut in August 1945, nuclear weapons and their potential effects have been a recurring motif in popular culture, to the extent that the decades of the Cold War are often referred to as the "atomic age".

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Alternate Presidents is an alternate history anthology edited by Mike Resnick, published in the United States by Tor Books. There are 28 stories in the anthology, including Resnick's own "The Bull Moose at Bay". The other remaining stories are by different authors, and present scenarios where an individual becomes President of the United States in a way that did not occur in real life. The anthology was released on February 15, 1992.

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Atomic tourism or Nuclear tourism is a recent form of tourism in which visitors learn about the Atomic Age by traveling to significant sites in atomic history such as museums with atomic weapons, missile silos, vehicles that carried atomic weapons or sites where atomic weapons were detonated.

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A Boy and His Dog is a cycle of narratives by author Harlan Ellison. The cycle tells the story of an amoral boy (Vic) and his telepathic dog (Blood), who work together as a team to survive in the post-apocalyptic world after a nuclear war. The original 1969 novella was adapted into the 1975 film A Boy and His Dog directed by L. Q. Jones. Both the story and the film were well-received by critics and science fiction fans, but the film was not successful commercially. The original novella was followed by short stories and a graphic novel.

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Chain Reaction is a peace monument and public art sculpture composed of a metal framework of stainless steel and fiberglass surrounded by concrete, depicting a mushroom cloud created by a nuclear explosion. Designed by American editorial cartoonist Paul Conrad and built by Peter M. Carlson, the 5.5-ton, 8-meter (26-foot) high sculpture was installed in 1991 adjacent to the Santa Monica Civic Center in Santa Monica, California.

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Doctor Atomic is an opera by the contemporary American composer John Adams, with libretto by Peter Sellars. It premiered at the San Francisco Opera on October 1, 2005. The work focuses on the great stress and anxiety experienced by those at Los Alamos while the test of the first atomic bomb was being prepared. In 2007, a documentary was made about the creation of the opera, titled Wonders Are Many.

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Enemies & Allies is a 2009 novel by American science fiction author Kevin J. Anderson. The book is set in the 1950s, in the midst of the Cold War, and follows Superman and Batman. Though suspicious of each other, they confront Lex Luthor who stages an international nuclear conflict and spreads fear of an alien invasion so that he can sell advanced weapons to governments. Themes used in the novel, reflective of the 1950s era, include alien invasion films, nuclear threats, and Cold War paranoia.