text: The first experiment to achieve controlled thermonuclear fusion was accomplished using Scylla I at LANL in 1958. Scylla I was a θ-pinch machine, with a cylinder full of deuterium. Electric current shot down the sides of the cylinder. The current made magnetic fields that pinched the plasma, raising temperatures to 15 million degrees Celsius, for long enough that atoms fused and produced neutrons. The Sherwood program sponsored a series of Scylla machines at Los Alamos. The program began with 5 researchers and $100,000 in US funding in January 1952. By 1965, a total of $21 million had been spent. The θ-pinch approach was abandoned after calculations showed it could not scale up to produce a reactor.