Three devices detonate at once under the Rajasthan desert; India joins the thermonuclear club

At 3:45 PM on May 11, 1998, three nuclear devices detonated simultaneously beneath the Rajasthan desert at India's Pokhran Test Range — a thermonuclear device in a shaft code-named White House, a fission bomb in one called Taj Mahal, and a sub-kiloton device in a third called Kumbhkaran. Two more devices followed on May 13. Within days, the United States and Japan imposed economic sanctions, and Pakistan announced it would take "appropriate action" — which it did, with six tests of its own before the month was out…