Hiroshima is a city in Japan where the first atomic bomb was dropped during World War II. For its geographic location, check out http://www.business.econ.city.hiroshima.jp/english/page3-01.html. The U.S. Office of Scientific Research and Development was created in June 1941 and given combined responsibility with the War Department on the Manhattan Project to develop a nuclear bomb. After four years of research and development efforts, the atomic bomb was born. Truman, the new U.S. president, decided to use this weapon to defeat Japan in a less costly way. On August 6, 1945, an atomic bomb carried in a specially equipped B-29 was dropped on Hiroshima. The combined heat and blast smashed everything in the explosion’s immediate neighborhood. Fires burned almost 4.4 square miles completely. The explosion killed between 70,000 and 80,000 people besides injuring more than 70,000 others. A second bomb, dropped on Nagasaki on August 9, killed between 35,000 and 40,000 people, injured a like number, and destroyed 1.8 square miles. Check out the web site at http://www.lclark.edu/~history/HIROSHIMA/ for more information.
