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1945: THE DAY THAT TIME STOOD STILL

IT TOOK A BLITZKRIEG to start World War II, but only two bomb to end it. The first, on August 6, 1945, leveled most of Hiroshima, annihilating some 80,000 people in a blinding flash. The second hit Nagasaki three days later, killing 40,000. After three years of top-secret work, the Manhattan project had translated Einstein'stheory of relativity into devastating reality: a weapon that harnessed the energy released by the splitting of the atom. The A-bombs' effects were as eerie as they were deadly. Those closest to the lasts were vaporized, leaving bright silhouettes on blackedned ground. Others perished slowly, radiation flaying them and devouring their organs. Cancer added to the toll, which eventually approached 200,000 in Hiroshima. Whether or not the atomic attacks were militarily necessary (a question that still stirs debate), one thing was clear from the moment the \textit{Enola Gay} released its playload: Human beings now had the means to exterminate humanity. The mushroom cloud would shadow politics and culture --- and the nightmares of millions --- forever after.

{\textit
The fear of future Hiroshima fueled a nuclear arms race. The Soviets teasted their own A-bomb in 1949 and the far more powerful hydrogen bomb in 1953. Each side kept upping the firepower, aiming to amass enough nuclear weapons to frightern its rival out of using them. When the could war ended in 1989, it was partly because the arms race had bankrupted the Soviet Union. By then, there were at least 60,000 warheads stockpiled in the U.S. and the Soviet Union, enough to kill every one on earth many times over.
}

PICTURE:
THE BOMB DROPPED ON HIROSHIMA DESTROYED THIS WATCH --- AND OUR INNOCENCE --- AT 8:15 A.M., August 6, 1945.

Full post as published by weblawg on February 02, 2009 (boomark / email).