Short answers, pulled from the story.
White Sands Missile Range was originally established in December 1941 as the Alamogordo Bombing and Gunnery Range. It was formally renamed White Sands Proving Ground on the 9th of July 1945, and received its current name, White Sands Missile Range, on the 1st of May 1958.
On the 16th of July 1945, the world's first atomic bomb, code-named Trinity, was test detonated at Trinity Site near the northern boundary of White Sands. The site was designated a National Historic Landmark on the 21st of December 1965 and added to the National Register of Historic Places on the 15th of October 1966.
Of the 100 German V-2 rockets captured by U.S. forces after World War II, 67 were test-fired at White Sands between 1946 and 1951. The first U.S. V-2 launch from the site occurred on the 16th of April 1946.
Yes. On the 30th of March 1982, NASA's Space Shuttle Columbia landed on the Northrop Strip at White Sands as the conclusion of mission STS-3. It remains the only time NASA used White Sands as a shuttle landing site.
White Sands Missile Range is the largest military installation in the United States, encompassing almost 3,200 square miles. It spans parts of Dona Ana, Otero, Socorro, Sierra, and Lincoln counties in southern New Mexico.
White Sands National Park, founded in the 1930s, is located within the borders of White Sands Missile Range. The San Andres National Wildlife Refuge is also contained within the range's boundaries.