World War II was winding down. The Italians had surrendered, Hitler and his Nazi army were defeated,
and the occupied countries in Europe had been liberated. But in the Pacific, the Japanese fought on. The
war‐weary Allies faced a fierce and dangerous invasion of Japan in order to finally end the fighting, with
estimated casualties in the millions. However, scientists in the United States had built a secret device,
nicknamed “the gadget,” that could end the war without a single soldier setting foot in Japan. This
alternative would force the Japanese to surrender, but it would also forever change how humans
thought about energy, war, and even our survival as a species.
The first atomic bombs were dropped on the heavily‐populated Japanese cities of Hiroshima and
Nagasaki, and the devastation was total. Tens of thousands of civilians were killed instantly, with many
more burned or disfigured by the explosion’s tremendous heat wave. In the months and years to come,
radiation poisoning would claim even more lives, and lead to horrific birth defects in future generations
of humans and animals. The terrible power of nuclear weapons caused many of the scientists who
created them to wonder if their use was ever justified.
Question
What were the immediate effects of the bombing of Hiroshima and Nagasaki?
