After the devastating bombing of Pearl Harbor in 1941, shock, anger, and hunger for payback spread throughout America like a plague. Roosevelt, quick to respond, declared war on Japan with the approval of congress only a day later, and after two years of conflict the US had finally entered WWII ready to show who was boss. Fighting went on between countries for years and when Japanese had lost all control of any place besides their homeland, president Truman offered the country an ultimatum called the Potsdam Declaration that offered US terms of peace and Japan's unconditional surrender. Japan understood the US threat of using nuclear weapons, however declined the proposal still.
Nagasaki after bomb |
FAT MAN |
Hiroshima "Little Boy" |
This site was useful, because it provided details on the causes of the US entry to war and resorting to atomic bombs as well as providing information about radiation poisoning.
This site was useful, because it gave me information about Roosevelt's proposal f a peace treaty as well as war casualty statistics. This site was useful, because of the information it provided about the physical impact of the bomb itself on the people and what they could feel, and also details about the damage caused by the bombs. This site helped me understand the impact of the bombs by providing equivolency statistics on the explosions, and the numbers of deaths.