Search results
Results from the WOW.Com Content Network
On 6 and 9 August 1945, the United States detonated two atomic bombs over the Japanese cities of Hiroshima and Nagasaki, respectively.The bombings killed between 150,000 and 246,000 people, most of whom were civilians, and they remain the only use of nuclear weapons in an armed conflict.
For several years after World War II, the United States developed and maintained a strategic force based on the Convair B-36 bomber that would be able to attack any potential enemy from bomber bases in the United States. It deployed atomic bombs around the world for potential use in conflicts.
A nuclear weapon [a] is an explosive device that derives its destructive force from nuclear reactions, either fission (fission or atomic bomb) or a combination of fission and fusion reactions (thermonuclear bomb), producing a nuclear explosion. Both bomb types release large quantities of energy from relatively small amounts of matter.
Manhattan District From top to bottom, left to right: Chicago Pile-1, the first nuclear reactor K-25, the primary uranium enrichment site The Hanford B Reactor used for plutonium production The Gadget implosion device at Los Alamos Alsos soldiers dismantle the Haigerloch pile of the German nuclear weapons program The Trinity test, the first nuclear explosion Atomic bombings of Hiroshima and ...
After World War II, the balance of power between the Eastern and Western blocs and the fear of global destruction prevented the further military use of atomic bombs. This fear was even a central part of Cold War strategy, referred to as the doctrine of Mutually Assured Destruction.
The Enola Gay (/ ə ˈ n oʊ l ə /) is a Boeing B-29 Superfortress bomber, named after Enola Gay Tibbets, the mother of the pilot, Colonel Paul Tibbets.On 6 August 1945, during the final stages of World War II, it became the first aircraft to drop an atomic bomb in warfare.
Experts then and now agree: By June 1945, Japan had been militarily defeated and President Truman didn’t need to bomb Hiroshima and Nagasaki. | Opinion
The term "atomic bomb" was already familiar to the British public through the writings of H. G. Wells, in his 1913 novel The World Set Free. [12] It was immediately apparent to many scientists that, in theory at least, an extremely powerful explosive could be created, although most still considered an atomic bomb was an impossibility. [13]