For more than forty years, the threat of nuclear armageddon hung over the world, and only faded from consciousness following the fall of the Berlin Wall and the implosion of the Soviet Union. Although the threat of nuclear war no longer occupies the publics attention, other threats have arisen to take their place. The Cold War left a legacy on the United States, the Soviet Union, and the entire world. Although some may argue that the negative effects of the cold war outweigh the positive, some good and some bad came from the Cold War. Living in fear is nothing that anyone wants to go through. Especially when that fear is so drastic as nuclear war. Not only death, but the possibility of the annihilation of the entire human race was at hands throughout the Cold War. The legacy of nuclear war left behind by the Cold War is one that would never leave.
On November 16th, 1952, the United States dropped the first Hydrogen bomb over a point slightly north of Runit Island. The bomb was dropped by a B-36H bomber and was thousands of times stronger than most atomic bombs. By the following year, the Soviet Union tested their first, and by early the 1970’s, another seven nations had succeeded in their own tests.
There are four stages following the detonation of nuclear bombs. The first is named the Flash and Fireball, which is the effect of a flash bright as the sun and the immediate burning of objects nearly nine miles away. Around two miles away, deadly x-ray pulses are sent out. People within about 50 miles of the bomb will be blinded if looking at the proceeding fireball, and those about 6.2 miles away will be extremely burned. The next stage of the nuclear bomb is nicknamed the blast. It occurs at the same time as the Flash and Fir...
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The Cold War was a period of dark and melancholic times when the entire world lived in fear that the boiling pot may spill. The protectionist measures taken by Eisenhower kept the communists in check to suspend the progression of USSR’s radical ambitions and programs. From the suspenseful delirium from the Cold War, the United States often engaged in a dangerous policy of brinksmanship through the mid-1950s. Fortunately, these actions did not lead to a global nuclear disaster as both the US and USSR fully understood what the weapons of mass destruction were capable of.
“On July 16, 1945, a six-kilogram sphere of plutonium exploded over the New Mexico desert with a force equal to 20,000 tons of dynamite” (Stoll 1). Shortly after, “on August 6 and 9, the United States dropped nuclear bombs on the Japanese cities of Hiroshima and Nagasaki” (Stoll 1). The levels of radiation released caused a lot of damage to humans and the environment .
An article called, “The Real War,” written by Roger J. Spiller, begins with a quote by Walt Whitman, “The real war will never get in the books.” The author writes about an interview with Paul Fussell, who was a soldier in World War Two and has written many books about World War One and World War Two. Fussell is very opinionated and critical about other books written about these wars, asserting they are not realistic or portray the true essence of what really occurred by soldiers and other people participating in the wars. I claim that it is impossible to convey the actual personal feelings and emotions of those involved in a war in books or any other forms of media.
Anonymous. "What Happens When a Nuclear Bomb Explodes?" Www.sgi.org. N.p., n.d. Web. 11 Nov. 2013.
Hellman, Martin. "Nuclear Attack a Ticking Time Bomb, Experts Warn." CBSNews. CBS Interactive, n.d. Web. 30 Nov. 2013. .
The first atomic bomb was not tested at all. It was dropped on Hiroshima, Japan on August 6, 1945 killing over 80,000 people and almost completely leveling the entire city. It destroyed more than 4 square miles,
When one thinks about warfare, the average mental picture is usually a movie war scene with soldiers, and planes; very rarely do people think about about the average Joe, trimming his hedge. In the short story “Grace Period”, by Will Baker, there is a man trimming his hedge outside with an electric hedge trimmer when a nuclear bomb is dropped; his wife has gone to get the mail. In “an instant [he felt as] everything stretched just slightly, a few millimeters, then contracted again” (Baker, 1989, p. 7). Although the character does not know what is happening, the reader may realize that this description is a high altitude nuclear burst. The article “Nuclear Weapon Effects”, by John Pike, describes what a nuclear bomb’s effects are and what could happen if one was dropped. Based on clues in the story and the information from the article, the reader can determine what is happening to the man and what he can expect will happen to him.
The world as we know it was built with events and circumstances that many of us are unaware of. One of the most powerful and deadliest discoveries of the human race in the twentieth century was the development of the atomic bomb. Many are aware that we dropped two atomic bombs on Japan in the end of the Second World War, but what many do not know are the extensive research operations that evaluated the technology to be used in future military operations. In the summer of 1946, American Government and Military forces conducted this research in Operation: Crossroads which was performed in the Bikini Islands. More than 40 years later in 1988 director Robert Stone directed and produced a documentary on these tests which was named Radio Bikini: the most terrifying and unbelievable story of the nuclear age. The film was hailed by critics for the content of the film and its use of newsreels and military film for the movie as one critic said, “Wha...
The USA’s new weapon, the Hydrogen bomb, or H-bomb, was one of the most powerful weapons of the time. In 1950, the H-bomb was tested in the Eniwetok Atoll, Marshall Islands (Cold War History). The reaction was so fierce, the explosion wiped the island off the face of the earth, leaving a crater on the ocean floor. The explosion reached a range of 25 square miles and had a mushroom cloud which dropped radioactive fallout on the surrounding areas (The Cold War Museum). This new weapon scared the Soviet Union into creating their own bombs.
At 5:30 AM July 16th 1945, the nuclear age had started. The world’s first atomic bomb was detonated. On August 6th 1942 at 8:15 AM, an American B-29 bomber, the Enola Gay, dropped a perfected atomic bomb created by the Americans, over the city of Hiroshima hoping to end the war. Thousands of people died in the two cities in Japan. They were Hiroshima and Nagasaki “the Manhattan Project”. The research and development project that produced these atomic bombs during this time was known as “the Manhattan Project”.
Volti, Rudi. “Atomic Bomb.” The Facts on File Encyclopedia of Science, Technology, and Society. Vol. 1. New York: Facts On File, 1999. Modern World History Online. Web. 4 Apr. 2012. .
The development and usage of the first atomic bombs has caused a change in military, political, and public functionality of the world today. The bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki revolutionized warfare by killing large masses of civilian population with a single strike. The bombs’ effects from the blast, extreme heat, and radiation left an estimated 140,000 people dead. The bombs created a temporary resolution that lead to another conflict. The Cold War was a political standoff between the Soviet Union and the United States that again created a new worldwide nuclear threat. The destructive potential of nuclear weapons had created a global sweep of fear as to what might happen if these terrible forces where unleashed again. The technology involved in building the first atomic bombs has grown into the creation of nuclear weapons that are potentially 40 times more powerful than the original bombs used. However, a military change in strategy has came to promote nuclear disarmament and prevent the usage of nuclear weapons. The technology of building the atomic bomb has spurred some useful innovations that can be applied through the use of nuclear power. The fear of a potential nuclear attack had been heightened by the media and its release of movies impacting on public opinion and fear of nuclear devastation. The lives lost after the detonation of the atomic bombs have become warning signs that changed global thinking and caused preventative actions.
When the United States caught word that Germany was close to creating the atomic bomb, J. Robert Oppenheimer and other scientists wanted to create it first, for the U.S. After three years of research, the first small atomic device was exploded on July 16, 1945 in the lab at Los Alamos. Having proved their concept worked, a larger scale bomb was built. Less than a month later, atomic bombs were dropped on Hiroshima and Nagasaki in Japan (Rosenberg).
What does this nation’s people remember most about the Cold War? Is it the fear, terror, and the absolute uncertainty of not knowing if tomorrow you might not wake up or worse, wake up to all out nuclear hell? “The most terrifying moment in my life was October 1962, during the Cuban Missile Crisis. I did not know all the facts - we have learned only recently how close we were to war - but I knew enough to make me tremble”-Joseph Rotblat. During those October days of 1962, John F. Kennedy and the United States braced for a nuclear attack that nobody was sure was coming. On the other side Nikita Khrushchev was hungry for power after being dominated by the U.S. for years during the long years of the Cold War. Khrushchev wanted to have the nuclear upper hand in the western hemisphere. With the help of Fidel Castro, Khrushchev could put nuclear weapons in Cuba.
The hydrogen bomb, a stronger version of nuclear bomb, which uses a fission bomb to ignite thermonuclear fuel, marked a new and extremely important stage in the nuclear arms race. Truman’s super bomb took over two years to complete. On November 1, 1952, the United States detonated the first hydrogen bomb on the pacific atoll of Eniwetok. The Soviet Union did not left far behind. Nine months later, on August 12, 1953 it tested an intermediate type of hydrogen bomb.