The Atomic Bomb

Testing! Testing!

The Manhattan Project

• Early 1939 German physicists had figured out how to split a uranium atom.
• Einstein and Fermi escaped Nazi persecution and agreed that the President needed informing.
• 1941- The Americans started to build the atomic bomb and the Manhattan Project was named.

• Roosevelt and Churchill agreed to keep Stalin in the dark.
• VP Truman didn't know about it until he became President
• Summer 1945- Oppenheimer was ready for test #1
• July 16, 1945- Trinity Site near Alamogordo, New Mexico. "Now I am become death, destroyer of worlds."- Oppenheimer
• nobody was prepared for the test.
• blinding flash visible for 200 miles
• 40,000 ft mushroom cloud
• windows of homes blown out up to 100 miles away.
• cloud returned to Earth, a half mile wide crater showed the change from sand to class.
• It had to be covered up as an ammo dump.

Ending Question

Do you think that Truman make the right decision?

Journal:

Nuclear Facilities and Facts

• Breakthrough! December 1942- first controlled nuclear chain reaction under the grandstands of Stagg Field at the University of Chicago
• Facilities were built in Oak Ridge, Tennessee and Hanford, Washington.
• Main assembly plant was in Los Alamos, New Mexico.
• The main man was Robert Oppenheimer. He was charged with putting the pieces together.
• $2 billion was spent on research and the development.
• Over 120,000 were employed for the project.

Do you think that the use of the Atomic Bomb was necessary?

Remembering

Dropping the Bomb

Fatman Dropped on Nagasaki, crew

• Americans occupied Okinawa and Iwo Jima.
• fire bombing was frequent
• Japan had an army of 2 million
• Truman had to make the decision.
• Allies demanded an immediate unconditional surrender from Japan. Germany had already surrendered.
• Japan rejected- but there was the idea of a conditional surrender.
• August 6, 1945- Plane Enola Gay dropped the first bomb on Hiroshima. "Little Boy"
• instant 70,000 Japanese vaporized.
• months and years to follow, 100,000 died due to burns and radiation sickness.
• August 8, 1945- Soviet Union declares war on Japan
• August 9, 1945- second bomb dropped on Nagasaki. "Fat Man"
• 80,000 dead
• August 14, 1945- Japanese surrendered

http://www.history.com/topics/world-war-ii/bombing-of-hiroshima-and-nagasaki/videos/atomic-bomb?m=528e394da93ae&s=undefined&f=1&free=false

http://www.history.com/topics/world-war-ii/bombing-of-hiroshima-and-nagasaki/videos/atomic-bomb-ends-wwII?m=528e394da93ae&s=undefined&f=1&free=false

Dropping the Bomb

It took 43 seconds for the bomb to fall from the sky to the ground at Hiroshima.

The Atomic Bomb