The Beginnings of the Atomic Bomb

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The Beginnings of the Atomic Bomb World War 2 was one of the worst wars in world history. The allied forces, the U.S., France, China, Russia, and Great Britain, were at war against the axis powers, Germany, Italy, and Japan, to stop the nazis from taking over the world. There were many bad events and battles that happened over the 6 year time span of the war; but one of the worst has to be the Hiroshima and Nagasaki bombings at the end of the war. Some people say that the U.S. Needed to drop the bombs to save American and Japanese lives. Some think otherwise, that the bombs were not nessecary to end the war. Even the scientists who created the bombs believed it shouldn't have been used. Once the bomb was created, there was controversy about if it should have been used or not, there were devastating effects on the cities they destroyed, but this did show U.S. Dominance to the rest of the world. The atomic bomb has a infamous histroy behind it. But its backstory is pretty interesting. The first atomic bomb was made by Physicist J. Robertson Oppenhimer and his team of skilled scientists and physicists. It was named the 'atomic' bomb because the explosion came from the splitting (known as fission) of an nuclei of either the element uranium or plutonium. The first test of the atomic bomb was on july 16th, 1945. It was tested at the Los Alamos test site in New Mexico. At the time of its creation, many scientists and government officials debated on wheather or not to use the bomb at all. "Many of the scientists who had worked on the bomb said that it should never be used." (abc-clio) Some believed that it would be essencial to win and end the war, but some people believed it would be inhumane to use it and that it should only b... ... middle of paper ... ...ant a significantly higher cost in Japanese lives than those actually killed in the atomic bombings." (abc-clio) The decision to drop the bomb came from President Truman. During the Potsdam Conference, he and Prime Minister Winston Churchill gave Japan an ultimatum to surrender. When Japan failed to respond to this, Truman gave the o.k. to drop the bomb. The same situation happened with Nagasaki also, except this time Japan failed to respond because their communication lines were destroyed from the first bomb. 5 days after the second bomb on Nagasaki, the Japanese Supreme Court surrendered on September 2, 1945. Works Cited "Many of the scientists who had worked on the bomb said that it should never be used." (abc-clio) "Prolonging the war would have meant a significantly higher cost in Japanese lives than those actually killed in the atomic bombings." (abc-clio)

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