The Day the USSR Tested Its First Atomic Bomb: August 29, 1949The day of August 29, 1949 changed not only the history of the USSR, but the entire course of global politics. The United States planned to use its monopoly as a tool of pressure, including against the Soviet Union. The Soviet Union expanded uranium mining in Central Asia and Eastern Europe, built the first reactors, and launched enrichment plants. The Day of the TestOn August 29, 1949, at 7:00 a.m. local time, the first Soviet atomic bomb was detonated. In September 1949, President Harry Truman was forced to admit that the Soviet Union had tested an atomic bomb.