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Effect Of The Us Atomic Bomb

On August 6th, 1945, the first Atomic Bomb was used on Hiroshima and it killed 135,000 people (http://www.atomicarchive.com/Docs/MED/med_chp10.shtml). Then three days later the next Atomic bomb was dropped on Nagasaki and killed another 64,000 people (http://www.atomicarchive.com/Docs/MED/med_chp10.shtml). This made Japan surrender and immediately ended ended one of the most significant of all wars, World War II. The first Atomic bomb was the foundation for future nuclear technologies, it started the Cold War, as well as many controversies that erupted in Iran and North Korea. It may have ended a war but it lead to many problems and harshened many conflicts .

In the 1930’s, many scientist believed if you split the atom in two, it would give off energy. With enough atom splitting it would give off a giant burst of energy. In 1938, Otto Hahn, a German physicist, discovered how to split the uranium atom. But many scientists feared that the Nazis might use it on Europe to further destruction. Then a Hungarian Scientist persuaded Albert Einstein to sign a letter that explained about the splitting of the atom and how it could be used. This letter was sent to Franklin Roosevelt. He responded by giving orders to “The United States Corps Of Engineers” to create the bomb. Jay C. Marshall was ordered to set up a secret project to create the bomb, this was known as “The Manhattan Project”. The project was not considered top priority until 1941, when Japan attacked a U.S. base in Hawaii called Pearl Harbor. Roosevelt stressed that research must have been going at “full steam” since Japan had posed it as a threat. They did the majority of the work in Los Alamos, New Mexico because this is where all of the scientists could gather and work in the same place. After 2 and a half years of hard work, the institution created two bombs. The first one was “Little Boy” which had a bullet design which used Uranium as its nuclear source. The other one called “Fat Man” had a more round...