USA, June 3, 2020 (HPI): This short video recounts the first atomic bomb test, July 16, 1945, in New Mexico, and includes video of Robert Oppenheimer explaining why he quoted from the Bhagavad Gita following the successful explosion of the first atomic bomb. Oppenheimer was a student of Sanskrit.
Wikipedia states:
Oppenheimer later recalled that, while witnessing the explosion, he thought of a verse from a Hindu holy book, the Bhagavad Gita (XI,12):
“If the radiance of a thousand suns were to burst at once into the sky, that would be like the splendor of the mighty one …”
Years later he would explain [in this video] that another verse had also entered his head at that time:
“We knew the world would not be the same. A few people laughed, a few people cried. Most people were silent. I remembered the line from the Hindu scripture, the Bhagavad Gita; Vishnu is trying to persuade the Prince that he should do his duty and, to impress him, takes on his multi-armed form and says, ‘Now I am become Death, the destroyer of worlds.’ I suppose we all thought that, one way or another.”