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Vintage photos from the last time Americans faced the threat of nuclear war

The last time Americans faced the threat of nuclear war, they bought bomb shelters and practiced air-raid drills.

Bomb shelters are in the midst of a revival.

As tensions between the United States and North Korea continue to escalate, bomb shelter manufacturers are reaping the benefits, the Associated Press reported.

"When Trump took office it doubled our sales, and then when he started making crazy statements we got a lot more orders," Walton McCarthy, who works at Norad Shelter Systems LLC in Garland, Texas, told AP.

Today, in a tweet, President Trump called North Korean leader Kim Jong Un "obviously a madman" and said he "will be tested like never before."

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Below, take a look at how Americans dealt with the threats of the Cold War during the 1950s and '60s — the last time nuclear war felt dangerously close.

In 1951, President Truman created the Federal Civil Defense Administration, which provided educational materials for schools about how to deal with a nuclear attack. Here, at Thomas Jefferson Elementary School in Baltimore, students kneel in the hallway during an air-raid drill.

In the '50s, New York City spent $159,000 on 2.5 million identification bracelets for children to wear. Here, a sixth-grade class in Queens, New York, practices the duck-and-cover drill.

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In this photo taken on April 28, 1961, a dog sits in the middle of Times Square, which is mostly empty due to a 10-minute civil defense test air-raid alert.

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At-home bomb shelters grew in popularity. In 1951, two styles of bomb shelters were being sold at Bomb Shelter Mart in Los Angeles, California.

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Here, in 1958, two models pose within a family-accommodating bomb shelter on display in Milwaukee, Wisconsin. In 1961, The New York Times reported a story with the headline: "Civil Defense Business Booming As Public Reacts to World News."

Here, bomb-shelter engineers Vincent Carubia (left) and Edward Klein (right) study specifications for a fiberglass dome shelter being installed on an estate in Locust Valley, New York.

In Utica, New York, in 1951, a radiological team inspect an area for radiation after a simulated atomic bombing.

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Testing also happened in Nevada to determine people's chances of survival following an atomic attack. Here, mannequins are placed 4,700 feet away from a bomb test in Yucca Flats, Nevada.

In 1962, these two families in Los Alamos, New Mexico, pose to demonstrate how people of the town should sit out a nuclear attack and the radioactive aftermath.

In this 1951 photo, Civil Defense Director George M. Phillips of the Atlanta, Georgia area, illustrates the use of a "flash dial." The wooden disc was created to show how to detect the center of an atomic explosion.

The Pentagon office in Washington, DC, was testing products for civilians. Here is the Army's chief chemical officer, Major General Marshall Stubbs, as he checks new civilian gas mask being worn by secretary Margaret Francis.

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