The most terrible weapon created by mankind is a nuclear bomb. Here are some facts from the history of testing this terrible invention.
External wiring of the Trinity nuclear device, the first ever test nuclear weapons- the atomic bomb. At the time of this photograph, the device was being prepared for its detonation, which took place on July 16, 1945. We can say that the history of testing began with this photo. nuclear bombs.
A silhouette of Los Alamos director Robert Oppenheimer overseeing the final assembly of the device at Trinity Proving Ground in July 1945.
Jumbo, a 200-ton steel canister designed to recover the plutonium used in the Trinity test, but the explosives that were originally used were unable to cause chain reaction. In the end, Jumbo was not used to recover plutonium, but it was installed near the epicenter to assess the impact of the explosion. It survived, but its tower has disappeared. 
An expanding fireball and shock wave from the Trinity explosion, captured 0.25 seconds after the explosion on July 16, 1945.
The fireball begins to rise and the world's first atomic mushroom cloud begins to form, pictured nine seconds after the Trinity explosion on July 16, 1945.
The US military watches the explosion during Operation Crossroads Baker, carried out on Bikini Atoll (Marshall Islands) on July 25, 1946. This was the fifth nuclear explosion, after the previous two were dropped on Hiroshima and Nagasaki.
First test of an underwater atomic bomb explosion, a massive column of water rises from the sea, Bikini Atoll, Pacific Ocean, July 25, 1946.
A huge mushroom cloud rises over Bikini Atoll in the Marshall Islands on July 25, 1946. The dark spots in the foreground are ships that were placed near the explosion site to test what the atomic bomb could do to a fleet of warships.
On November 16, 1952, a B-36H bomber dropped an atomic bomb over the northern tip of Runit Island in Enewetak Atoll, resulting in a 500 kiloton explosion, part of a test codenamed Ivy.
Operation Greenhouse took place in the spring of 1951, consisting of four explosions at the firing ranges in pacific ocean. This photo of the third test, George, May 9, 1951, the first thermonuclear bomb, 225 kiloton yield.
The photo shows a nuclear ball (one millisecond after the explosion). During the Tumbler-Snapper test in 1952, a nuclear bomb was planted 90 meters above the Nevada desert.
Complete destruction of house number 1, located at a distance of 1070 meters from the epicenter, destroyed by a nuclear explosion, March 17, 1953, Yucca Flat at the Nevada test site. The time from the first to the last image is 2.3 seconds. The camera was in a 5 cm lead sheath that protected it from radiation. The only source The light was itself an explosion from a nuclear bomb.
1 photo. During the Doorstep test, conducted during the major operation Upshot-Knothole, dummies are sitting at the table of the dining room of the house number two, March 15, 1953.
2 photos. After the explosion, mannequins lie scattered around the room, their "meal" was interrupted by an atomic explosion on March 17, 1953.
1 photo. A mannequin lying on a bed, the second floor of building number 2, is ready to experience the effects of an atomic explosion, at a test site near Las Vegas, Nevada, on March 15, 1953, at a distance of 1.5 miles, there is a 90-meter-high steel tower on which a bomb will be detonated . The purpose of the tests is to show civil defense officials what would happen in an American city if it were subjected to an atomic attack.
1 photo. Mannequins, representing a typical American family, gathered in the living room of house number 2 on March 15, 1953.
Operation Upshot-Knothole, BADGER Event, 23-kiloton yield, April 18, 1953, Nevada Test Site.
US nuclear artillery test, test conducted by the US military in Nevada on May 25, 1953. A 280mm nuclear projectile was fired 10 km into the desert from the M65 Atomic Cannon, the detonation occurred in the air, about 152 meters above the ground, with a yield of 15 kilotons. 
H-bomb test explosion during Operation Redwing over Bikini Atoll, May 20, 1956.
The flash of an exploding nuclear warhead by an air-to-air missile is shown as bright sun in the eastern sky at 7:30 am on July 19, 1957 at the Indian Air Force Base, about 30 miles from the point of explosion.
The photo shows the tail of the airship navy USA, below is a Stokes cloud at the Nevada Proving Ground on August 7th, 1957. The airship was in free flight over five miles from the epicenter. The airship was unmanned and was used as a dummy.
Observers view atmospheric phenomena during the Hardtack I thermonuclear bomb test, Pacific Ocean, 1958.
2 photos from a series of over 100 nuclear test explosions in Nevada and the Pacific in 1962
The Fishbowl Bluegill bombing, a 400-kiloton atomic bomb explodes in the atmosphere, 30 miles above the Pacific Ocean (photo above), October 1962.
Another photo from a series of over 100 nuclear test explosions in Nevada and the Pacific Ocean in 1962
The Sedan crater was formed with a 100 kiloton bomb buried under 193 meters of earth, displacing 12 million tons of earth in the process. Crater 97 meters deep and 390 meters in diameter, July 6, 1962
(3 photos) Explosion of the French atomic bomb on the Mururoa Atoll, French Polynesia. 1971
The history of nuclear bomb tests in the photo
The first Soviet nuclear device, codenamed "RDS-1" / Photo: kultprivet.ru
Sixty-five years ago, at the Semipalatinsk test site (Kazakhstan), the first Soviet charge for an atomic bomb was successfully tested.
August 29, 1949 - Testing of the first atomic bomb RDS-1 / Photo: perevodika.ru
Below is some background information.
The successful testing of the first Soviet charge for the atomic bomb was preceded by a long and difficult work of physicists. The beginning of work on nuclear fission in the USSR can be considered the 1920s. Since the 1930s, nuclear physics has become one of the main areas of Russian physical science, and in October 1940, for the first time in the USSR, a group of Soviet scientists made a proposal to use atomic energy for weapons purposes, submitting an application to the Invention Department of the Red Army "On the use of uranium as explosive and poisonous substances.
The war that began in June 1941 and the evacuation scientific institutes dealing with problems nuclear physics, interrupted work on the creation of atomic weapons in the country. But already in the autumn of 1941, the USSR began to receive intelligence information about the conduct of secret intensive research work in the UK and the USA aimed at developing methods for using atomic energy for military purposes and creating explosives of enormous destructive power.
This information forced, despite the war, to resume work on uranium in the USSR. On September 28, 1942, a secret decree was signed State Committee Defense ╧ 2352ss "On the organization of work on uranium", according to which research on the use of atomic energy was resumed. In February 1943, Igor Kurchatov was appointed scientific director of work on the atomic problem. In Moscow, headed by Kurchatov, Laboratory No. 2 of the USSR Academy of Sciences (now the National Research Center "Kurchatov Institute") was created, which began to study atomic energy.
Initially, Vyacheslav Molotov, Deputy Chairman of the State Defense Committee (GKO) of the USSR, was in charge of the nuclear problem. But on August 20, 1945 (a few days after the US carried out the atomic bombing of Japanese cities), the GKO decided to create a Special Committee, headed by Lavrenty Beria. He became the curator of the Soviet atomic project. At the same time, for the direct management of research, design, engineering organizations and industrial enterprises employed in the Soviet atomic project, was created
The first main department under the Council of People's Commissars of the USSR (later the Ministry of Medium Machine Building of the USSR, now the State Atomic Energy Corporation "Rosatom"). The head of PSU was the former People's Commissar ammunition Boris Vannikov.
In April 1946, the design bureau KB-11 (now the Russian Federal Nuclear Center - VNIIEF) was created at Laboratory ╧2 - one of the most secret enterprises for the development of domestic nuclear weapons, whose chief designer was Yuli Khariton. Plant ╧550 of the People's Commissariat of Ammunition, which produced artillery shells, was chosen as the base for the deployment of KB-11. The top-secret object was located 75 kilometers from the city of Arzamas (Gorky region, now Nizhny Novgorod region) on the territory of the former Sarov monastery. KB-11 was tasked with creating an atomic bomb in two versions. In the first of them, the working substance should be plutonium, in the second - uranium-235.
In the middle of 1948, work on the uranium version was discontinued due to its relatively low efficiency compared to the cost of nuclear materials. The first domestic atomic bomb had the official designation RDS-1. It was deciphered in different ways: "Russia makes itself", "The Motherland gives Stalin", etc. But in the official resolution of the Council of Ministers of the USSR of June 21, 1946, it was encrypted as "Special Jet Engine ("C"). Soviet atomic bomb RDS-1 was carried out taking into account the available materials according to the US plutonium bomb scheme tested in 1945.
These materials were provided by Soviet foreign intelligence. An important source information was Klaus Fuchs - a German physicist, a participant in the work on the nuclear programs of the United States and Great Britain. Intelligence materials on the American plutonium charge for the atomic bomb made it possible to reduce the time for the creation of the first Soviet charge, although many of the technical solutions of the American prototype were not the best. Even on early stages Soviet specialists could offer the best solutions for both the charge as a whole and its individual nodes.
Therefore, the first charge for an atomic bomb tested by the USSR was more primitive and less effective than the original version proposed by Soviet scientists in early 1949. But in order to guarantee and in a short time to show that the USSR also possesses atomic weapons, it was decided to use a charge created according to the American scheme at the first test.
The charge for the RDS-1 atomic bomb was a multilayer structure in which the translation active substance- plutonium to the supercritical state was carried out due to its compression by means of a converging spherical detonation wave in an explosive. RDS-1 was an aviation atomic bomb weighing 4.7 tons, 1.5 meters in diameter and 3.3 meters long.
Charge for the atomic bomb RDS-1 / Photo: 50megatonn.ru
It was developed in relation to the Tu-4 aircraft, the bomb bay of which allowed the placement of a "product" with a diameter of no more than 1.5 meters. Plutonium was used as the fissile material in the bomb. For the production of an atomic bomb charge in the city of Chelyabinsk-40 in the South Urals, a plant was built under the conditional number 817 (now the Mayak Production Association). uranium reactor, and a plant for the production of products from metallic plutonium.The plant's reactor 817 was brought to design capacity in June 1948, and a year later the enterprise received the necessary amount of plutonium to manufacture the first charge for an atomic bomb.
The site for the test site, where it was planned to test the charge, was chosen in the Irtysh steppe, about 170 kilometers west of Semipalatinsk in Kazakhstan. A plain with a diameter of about 20 kilometers was allotted for the test site, surrounded from the south, west and north by low mountains. To the east of this space were small hills. The construction of the training ground, which was called training ground No. 2 of the Ministry of the Armed Forces of the USSR (later the Ministry of Defense of the USSR), was started in 1947, and by July 1949 it was basically completed.
For testing at the test site, an experimental site with a diameter of 10 kilometers, divided into sectors, was prepared. It was equipped with special facilities to ensure testing, observation and registration of physical research. In the center of the experimental field, a metal lattice tower 37.5 meters high was mounted, designed to install the RDS-1 charge. At a distance of one kilometer from the center, an underground building was built for equipment that registers light, neutron and gamma fluxes of a nuclear explosion.
To study the impact of a nuclear explosion, segments of subway tunnels, fragments of airfield runways were built on the experimental field, samples of aircraft, tanks, artillery rocket launchers, ship superstructures of various types were placed. To ensure the operation of the physical sector, 44 structures were built at the test site and a cable network was laid with a length of 560 kilometers.
In June-July 1949, two groups of KB-11 workers with auxiliary equipment and household equipment were sent to the test site, and on July 24 a group of specialists arrived there, which was to be directly involved in preparing the atomic bomb for testing. On August 5, 1949, the government commission for testing the RDS-1 issued a conclusion on the complete readiness of the test site. On August 21, a plutonium charge and four neutron fuses were delivered to the test site by a special train, one of which was to be used to detonate a military product. On August 24, 1949, Kurchatov arrived at the training ground.
I.V.Kurchatov / Photo: 900igr.net
By August 26, all preparatory work at the landfill was completed. The head of the experiment, Kurchatov, ordered the testing of the RDS-1 on August 29 at eight o'clock in the morning local time and the conduct of preparatory operations starting at eight o'clock in the morning on August 27. On the morning of August 27, the assembly of a combat product began near the central tower.
On the afternoon of August 28, the bombers carried out the last full inspection of the tower, prepared the automation for the explosion and checked the explosive cable line. At four o'clock in the afternoon on August 28, a plutonium charge and neutron fuses were delivered to the workshop near the tower. The final installation of the charge was completed by three o'clock in the morning on August 29. At four o'clock in the morning, the fitters rolled the product out of the assembly shop along the rail track and installed it in the tower's cargo lift cage, and then raised the charge to the top of the tower.
By six o'clock, the equipment of the charge with fuses and its connection to the subversive circuit was completed. Then the evacuation of all people from the test field began. In connection with the worsening weather, Kurchatov decided to postpone the explosion from 8.00 to 7.00. At 6.35 the operators turned on the power of the automation system. 12 minutes before the explosion, the field machine was turned on. 20 seconds before the explosion, the operator turned on the main connector (switch) connecting the product to the automatic control system.
From that moment on, all operations were performed by an automatic device. Six seconds before the explosion, the main mechanism of the automaton turned on the power of the product and part of the field devices, and one second turned on all the other devices, gave a signal to detonate.
Exactly at seven o'clock on August 29, 1949, the whole area was lit up with a blinding light, which marked that the USSR had successfully completed the development and testing of its first charge for an atomic bomb. The charge power was 22 kilotons of TNT.
20 minutes after the explosion, two tanks equipped with lead shielding were sent to the center of the field to conduct radiation reconnaissance and inspect the center of the field. The reconnaissance found that all structures in the center of the field had been demolished. A funnel gaped in place of the tower, the soil in the center of the field melted, and a continuous crust of slag formed. Civilian buildings and industrial structures were completely or partially destroyed.
The equipment used in the experiment made it possible to carry out optical observations and measurements of the heat flux, parameters shock wave, characteristics of neutron and gamma radiation, to determine the level of radioactive contamination of the area in the area of the explosion and along the trail of the explosion cloud, to study the impact of damaging factors of a nuclear explosion on biological objects.
For the successful development and testing of a charge for an atomic bomb, several closed decrees of the Presidium of the Supreme Soviet of the USSR dated October 29, 1949 awarded orders and medals of the USSR to a large group of leading researchers, designers, and technologists; many were awarded the title of laureates of the Stalin Prize, and more than 30 people received the title of Hero of Socialist Labor.
As a result of the successful test of the RDS-1, the USSR eliminated the American monopoly on the possession of atomic weapons, becoming the second nuclear power in the world.
MOSCOW, RIA Novosti
In December 1946, the first experimental nuclear reactor was launched in the USSR, which required 45 tons of uranium to operate. To launch an industrial reactor, which was required to produce plutonium, another 150 tons of uranium were needed, which were accumulated only by the beginning of 1948.
Test launches of the reactor began on June 8, 1948 near Chelyabinsk, but at the end of the year a serious accident occurred, due to which the reactor was shut down for 2 months. At the same time, manual disassembly and assembly of the reactor was carried out, during which thousands of people were irradiated, including Igor Kurchatov and Avraamy Zavenyagin, members of the leadership of the Soviet nuclear project who participated in the liquidation of the accident. The 10 kilograms of plutonium necessary for the manufacture of an atomic bomb were obtained in the USSR by mid-1949.
The test of the first domestic atomic bomb RDS-1 was carried out on August 29, 1949 at the Semipalatinsk test site. In place of the tower with the bomb, a funnel 3 meters in diameter and 1.5 meters deep was formed, covered with melted sand. After the explosion, it was allowed to stay 2 kilometers from the epicenter and no more than 15 minutes due to high level radiation.
At 25 meters from the tower there was a building made of reinforced concrete structures, with an overhead crane in the hall for installing a plutonium charge. The structure was partially destroyed, the structure itself survived. Of the 1,538 experimental animals, 345 died as a result of the explosion, some of the animals imitated soldiers in the trenches.
The T-34 tank and field artillery received light damage within a radius of 500-550 meters from the epicenter, and at a distance of up to 1500 meters, all types of aircraft received significant damage. At a distance of a kilometer from the epicenter and further every 500 meters, 10 Pobeda cars were installed, all 10 cars burned down.
At a distance of 800 meters, two residential 3-storey houses, built 20 meters from each other, so that the first shielded the second, were completely destroyed, residential panel and log houses of the urban type were completely destroyed within a radius of 5 kilometers. Most of the damage was received from the shock wave. Railway and highway bridges located at 1,000 and 1,500 meters, respectively, were mangled and thrown 20-30 meters from their place.
The wagons and vehicles located on the bridges, half-burnt, were scattered across the steppe at a distance of 50-80 meters from the installation site. Tanks and cannons were overturned and mangled, animals were carried away. The tests were considered successful.
Lavrentiy Beria and Igor Kurchatov, the project managers, were awarded the title of Honorary Citizen of the USSR. A number of scientists who participated in the project - Kurchatov, Flerov, Khariton, Khlopin, Shchelkin, Zeldovich, Bochvar, as well as Nikolaus Riehl, became Heroes of Socialist Labor.
All of them were awarded Stalin Prizes, and also received dachas near Moscow and Pobeda cars, and Kurchatov received a ZIS car. The title of Hero of Socialist Labor was also received - one of the leaders of the Soviet defense industry Boris Vannikov, his deputy Pervukhin, deputy minister Zavenyagin, as well as 7 more generals of the Ministry of Internal Affairs who led atomic objects. Project manager Beria was awarded the order Lenin.
Koh Kambaran. Pakistan decided to conduct its first nuclear tests in the province of Balochistan. The charges were placed in an adit dug in the Koh Kambaran mountain and blown up in May 1998. Local residents almost never look into this area, with the exception of a few nomads and herbalists.
Maralinga. The area in southern Australia where atmospheric nuclear weapons tests took place was once considered sacred by the locals. As a result, twenty years after the end of the tests, a second operation was organized to clean up Maraling. The first was carried out after the final test in 1963. 
Save In the Indian empty Thar state of Rajasthan on May 18, 1974, an 8 kiloton bomb was tested. In May 1998, charges were already blasted at the Pokhran test site - five pieces, among them a thermonuclear charge of 43 kilotons. 
Bikini Atoll. Bikini Atoll is located in the Marshall Islands in the Pacific Ocean, where the United States actively conducted nuclear tests. Other explosions were rarely captured on film, but these were filmed quite often. Still - 67 tests in the interval from 1946 to 1958. 
Christmas Island. Christmas Island, also known as Kiritimati, is distinguished by the fact that both Britain and the United States conducted nuclear weapons tests on it. In 1957, the first British hydrogen bomb was detonated there, and in 1962, as part of the Dominic Project, the United States tested 22 charges there. 
Lobnor. At the site of a dried-up salt lake in western China, about 45 warheads were blown up - both in the atmosphere and underground. Testing was terminated in 1996. 
Mururoa. The South Pacific atoll survived a lot - more specifically, 181 French nuclear weapons tests from 1966 to 1986. Last charge stuck in underground mine and during the explosion formed a crack several kilometers long. After this, the tests were terminated. 
New Earth. Archipelago in the North Arctic Ocean selected for nuclear testing on September 17, 1954. Since then, 132 nuclear explosions have been carried out there, including the test of the most powerful hydrogen bomb in the world, the Tsar Bomba, at 58 megatons. 
Semipalatinsk. From 1949 to 1989 at least 468 nuclear tests were carried out at the Semipalatinsk nuclear test site. So much plutonium accumulated there that from 1996 to 2012, Kazakhstan, Russia and the United States conducted a secret operation to search for and collect and dispose of radioactive materials. It was possible to collect about 200 kg of plutonium. 
Nevada. The Nevada test site, which has existed since 1951, breaks all records - 928 nuclear explosions, of which 800 are underground. Considering that the test site is located only 100 kilometers from Las Vegas, mushroom mushrooms were considered quite a normal part of entertainment for tourists half a century ago. 
The one who invented the atomic bomb could not even imagine what tragic consequences this miracle invention of the 20th century could lead to. Before this superweapon was experienced by the inhabitants of the Japanese cities of Hiroshima and Nagasaki, a very long way had been done.
A start
In April 1903, Paul Langevin's friends gathered in the Parisian Garden of France. The reason was the defense of the dissertation of the young and talented scientist Marie Curie. Among the distinguished guests was the famous English physicist Sir Ernest Rutherford. In the midst of the fun, the lights were put out. announced to everyone that now there will be a surprise. With a solemn air, Pierre Curie brought in a small tube of radium salts, which shone with a green light, causing extraordinary delight among those present. In the future, the guests heatedly discussed the future of this phenomenon. Everyone agreed that thanks to radium, the acute problem of lack of energy would be solved. This inspired everyone to new research and further perspectives. If they were then told that laboratory works with radioactive elements will lay the foundation for a terrible weapon of the 20th century, it is not known what their reaction would be. It was then that the story of the atomic bomb began, which claimed the lives of hundreds of thousands of Japanese civilians.
Game ahead of the curve
On December 17, 1938, the German scientist Otto Gann obtained irrefutable evidence of the decay of uranium into smaller elementary particles. In fact, he managed to split the atom. In the scientific world, this was regarded as a new milestone in the history of mankind. Otto Gunn did not share the political views of the Third Reich. Therefore, in the same year, 1938, the scientist was forced to move to Stockholm, where, together with Friedrich Strassmann, he continued his scientific research. Fearing that fascist Germany will be the first to receive a terrible weapon, he writes a letter with a warning about this. The news of a possible lead greatly alarmed the US government. The Americans began to act quickly and decisively.
Who created the atomic bomb? American project
Even before the group, many of whom were refugees from the Nazi regime in Europe, was tasked with developing nuclear weapons. The initial research, it is worth noting, was carried out in Nazi Germany. In 1940, the government of the United States of America began funding its own program to develop atomic weapons. An incredible amount of two and a half billion dollars was allocated for the implementation of the project. Outstanding physicists of the 20th century were invited to carry out this secret project, including more than ten Nobel laureates. In total, about 130 thousand employees were involved, among whom were not only the military, but also civilians. The development team was led by Colonel Leslie Richard Groves, with Robert Oppenheimer as supervisor. He is the man who invented the atomic bomb. A special secret engineering building was built in the Manhattan area, which is known to us under the code name "Manhattan Project". Over the next few years, the scientists of the secret project worked on the problem of nuclear fission of uranium and plutonium.
Non-peaceful atom by Igor Kurchatov
Today, every schoolchild will be able to answer the question of who invented the atomic bomb in the Soviet Union. And then, in the early 30s of the last century, no one knew this.
In 1932, Academician Igor Vasilievich Kurchatov was one of the first in the world to begin studying atomic nucleus. Gathering like-minded people around him, Igor Vasilievich in 1937 created the first cyclotron in Europe. In the same year, he and his like-minded people create the first artificial nuclei.
In 1939, I. V. Kurchatov began to study a new direction - nuclear physics. After several laboratory successes in studying this phenomenon, the scientist gets at his disposal a secret research center, which was named "Laboratory No. 2". Today, this secret object is called "Arzamas-16".
The target direction of this center was a serious research and development of nuclear weapons. Now it becomes obvious who created the atomic bomb in the Soviet Union. There were only ten people on his team then.
atomic bomb to be
By the end of 1945, Igor Vasilyevich Kurchatov managed to assemble a serious team of scientists numbering more than a hundred people. The best minds of different scientific specializations came to the laboratory from all over the country to create atomic weapons. After the Americans dropped the atomic bomb on Hiroshima, Soviet scientists understood that this could be done with Soviet Union. "Laboratory No. 2" receives a sharp increase in funding from the country's leadership and a large influx of qualified personnel. Lavrenty Pavlovich Beria is appointed responsible for such an important project. The enormous labors of Soviet scientists have borne fruit.
Semipalatinsk test site
The atomic bomb in the USSR was first tested at the test site in Semipalatinsk (Kazakhstan). On August 29, 1949, a 22 kiloton nuclear device shook the Kazakh land. Nobel Laureate, physicist Otto Hanz, said: “This is good news. If Russia has atomic weapons, then there will be no war.” It was this atomic bomb in the USSR, encrypted as product number 501, or RDS-1, that eliminated the US monopoly on nuclear weapons.
Atomic bomb. Year 1945
In the early morning of July 16, the Manhattan Project conducted its first successful test of an atomic device - a plutonium bomb - at the Alamogordo test site in New Mexico, USA.
The money invested in the project was well spent. The first in the history of mankind was produced at 5:30 in the morning.
"We have done the work of the devil," the one who invented the atomic bomb in the United States, later called the "father of the atomic bomb," will say later.
Japan does not capitulate
By the time of the final and successful testing of the atomic bomb Soviet troops and the Allies finally defeated Nazi Germany. However, there was one state that promised to fight to the end for dominance in the Pacific Ocean. From mid-April to mid-July 1945, the Japanese army repeatedly carried out air strikes against allied forces, thereby inflicting heavy losses on the US army. At the end of July 1945, the militarist government of Japan rejected the Allied demand for surrender in accordance with the Potsdam Declaration. In it, in particular, it was said that in case of disobedience, the Japanese army would face rapid and complete destruction.
President agrees
The American government kept its word and began targeted bombing of Japanese military positions. Air strikes did not bring the desired result, and US President Harry Truman decides on the invasion of American troops into Japan. However, the military command dissuades its president from such a decision, citing the fact that the American invasion would entail a large number of victims.
At the suggestion of Henry Lewis Stimson and Dwight David Eisenhower, it was decided to use more effective method end of the war. big supporter atomic bomb, Secretary of the President of the United States James Francis Byrnes, believed that the bombing of Japanese territories would finally end the war and put the United States in a dominant position, which would positively affect the further course of events in the post-war world. Thus, US President Harry Truman was convinced that this was the only correct option.
Atomic bomb. Hiroshima
The small Japanese city of Hiroshima, with a population of just over 350,000, was chosen as the first target, located five hundred miles from the capital of Japan, Tokyo. After the modified Enola Gay B-29 bomber arrived at the US naval base on Tinian Island, an atomic bomb was installed on board the aircraft. Hiroshima was supposed to experience the effects of 9,000 pounds of uranium-235.
This hitherto unseen weapon was intended for civilians in a small Japanese town. The bomber commander was Colonel Paul Warfield Tibbets, Jr. The US atomic bomb bore the cynical name "Baby". On the morning of August 6, 1945, at about 8:15 am, the American "Baby" was dropped on the Japanese Hiroshima. About 15 thousand tons of TNT destroyed all life within a radius of five square miles. One hundred and forty thousand inhabitants of the city died in a matter of seconds. The surviving Japanese died a painful death from radiation sickness.
They were destroyed by the American atomic "Kid". However, the devastation of Hiroshima did not cause the immediate surrender of Japan, as everyone expected. Then it was decided to another bombardment of Japanese territory.
Nagasaki. Sky on fire
The American atomic bomb "Fat Man" was installed on board the B-29 aircraft on August 9, 1945, all in the same place, at the US naval base in Tinian. This time the aircraft commander was Major Charles Sweeney. Initially, the strategic target was the city of Kokura.
However weather not allowed to carry out the plan, hindered by a large cloud cover. Charles Sweeney went into the second round. At 11:02 am, the American nuclear-powered Fat Man swallowed up Nagasaki. It was a more powerful destructive air strike, which, in its strength, was several times higher than the bombing in Hiroshima. Nagasaki tested an atomic weapon weighing about 10,000 pounds and 22 kilotons of TNT.
The geographical location of the Japanese city reduced the expected effect. The thing is that the city is located in a narrow valley between the mountains. Therefore, the destruction of 2.6 square miles did not reveal the full potential of American weapons. The Nagasaki atomic bomb test is considered the failed "Manhattan Project".
Japan surrendered
On the afternoon of August 15, 1945, Emperor Hirohito announced his country's surrender in a radio address to the people of Japan. This news quickly spread around the world. In the United States of America, celebrations began on the occasion of the victory over Japan. The people rejoiced.
On September 2, 1945, a formal agreement to end the war was signed aboard the USS Missouri, anchored in Tokyo Bay. Thus ended the most cruel and bloody war in the history of mankind.
For six long years, the world community has been moving towards this significant date- since September 1, 1939, when the first shots of Nazi Germany were fired on the territory of Poland.
Peaceful atom
A total of 124 nuclear explosions were carried out in the Soviet Union. It is characteristic that all of them were carried out for the benefit National economy. Only three of them were accidents involving the release of radioactive elements. Programs for the use of peaceful atom were implemented only in two countries - the United States and the Soviet Union. Nuclear peaceful energy knows an example of a global catastrophe, when years at the fourth power unit Chernobyl nuclear power plant the reactor exploded.
