The Nuclear Arms Race of the 1950s was a time of great fear, of danger, and of potential destruction.It was a time when two world powers, were racing to create weapons of mass destruction, that could obliterate entire cities.The atomic bomb was created in 1945, as part of the Manhattan Project in the United States. So, woohoo, thanks for that.Just four short years later, in 1949, the Soviet Union successfully tested their own atomic weapon.