On May 18, 1974, a 3,000-pound plutonium implosion device detonated 330 feet beneath the Thar Desert at Pokhran, Rajasthan. The yield was 8 kilotons; modest by the standards of the nuclear powers, but sufficient to announce India's arrival as the world's sixth nuclear-weapon state.

The Kushan Empire (circa 30-375 AD), is one of the four great powers of the ancient world alongside Rome, Parthia, and Han China. The Kushans, originating as nomadic Yuezhi tribes from the Gansu corridor of northwestern China, constructed a vast and prosperous empire that spanned from Central Asia to northern India, becoming the pivotal civilizational hub of the Eurasian continent.