Page 66 - 100 Events That Made History

Atomic bombs

dropped

A devastating end to World War II

When US scientists found a way to create
deadly weapons by splitting atoms, it
resulted in two bomb attacks that sent

shockwaves around the world.

A long, hard war
In April 1945, GERMANY finally
surrendered, ending six long years of World
War II in Europe. But in the Pacific, the fight
against Germany’s partner, Japan, dragged on.
US military commanders calculated that it
would cost them up to a million soldiers’ The temperature at the center
lives to invade Japan. Instead, they decided on of the Hiroshima bomb explosion
another way to end the war—by developing was three times hotter than
atomic bombs, the most devastating weapons the core of the sun.
the world had ever seen.

Atomic arms race
In the US, the secret wartime plan to
develop an atomic bomb was code-named
the Manhattan Project. The head scientist,
J. ROBERT OPPENHEIMER, was helped by
a team of scientists, many of whom had fled
to the USA from Nazi-occupied Europe.
Soviet troops raise the
USSR flag over the German
Reichstag (parliament) in Berlin.

What came before…

In September 1939, Adolf During the war, the
Hitler, Nazi dictator of Nazis executed SIX MILLION
Germany, invaded Poland. JEWISH PEOPLE from all over
This broke an agreement he Europe. This systematic
had made with Britain and murder is now known
France, who DECLARED WAR. as the Holocaust.
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