Hiroshima and Nagasaki

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Project Manhattan

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The Manhattan Project was the code name for the American-led effort to develop a functional atomic weapon during World War II. The creation and eventual use of the first atomic bombs ended the war. It engaged some of the worlds leading scientific minds as well as the U.S military.

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America Declares War

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The agencies leading up to the Manhattan Project were first formed in 1939 by President Franklin D Roosevelt, after U.S. intelligence operatives reported that scientists working for Adolf Hitler were already working on a nuclear weapon.

Robert Oppenheimer and Project Y

Theoretical physicist J. Robert Oppenheimer was already working on the concept of nuclear fission (along with Edward Teller and others) when he was named director of the Los Alamos Laboratory in northern New Mexico in 1943.

The Potsdam Conference

With the Germans sustaining heavy losses in Europe and nearing surrender, the consensus among U.S. military leaders in 1945 was that the Japanese would fight to the bitter end and force a full-scale invasion of the island nation, resulting in significant casualties on both sides.

Fat Man and Little Boy

The military leaders of the Manhattan Project had identified Hiroshima, Japan, as an ideal target for an atomic bomb, because of its size and the fact that there were no known American prisoners of war in the area. A forceful demonstration of the technology developed in New Mexico was deemed necessary to make the Japanese to surrender.

The Bombing

With no surrender agreement in place, on August 6, 1945, the Enola Gay bomber plane dropped the as-yet untested “Little Boy” bomb some 1,900 feet above Hiroshima, causing unprecedented destruction and death over an area of five square miles. Three days later, with still no surrender declared, on August 9th, the “Fat Man” bomb was dropped over Nagasaki, site of a torpedo-building plant, destroying more than three square miles of the city.

The Aftermath

By the end of 1945, the bombing had killed about 140,000 people in Hiroshima, and a further 74,000 in Nagasaki. In the years that followed, many of the survivors would face leukemia, cancer, or other terrible side effects from the radiation. “Each person had a name. Each person was loved by someone.