Slide 1

THE BOMB THAT

SHOOK THE WORLD

11TH GRADE U.S. HISTORY WITH MS. JONES

Slide 2

ESSENTIAL
QUESTION
WAS THE U.S. JUSTIFIED IN
DROPPING THE ATOMIC BOMB
ON HIROSHIMA AND
NAGASAKI?
Slide 3

CA CONTENT STANDARDS AND OBJECTIVES

LEARNING GOALS SUCCESS CRITERIA

• Analyze America’s participation in World War II We Can...

• Answer essential question using evidence of text and other media formats • Discuss the decision to drop the atomic bombs and the consequences of
the decision (Hiroshima and Nagasaki)
• Compare causes of events to effects of today
• Participate effectively in a range of conversations and collaborations with
• Evaluate motives of decision to drop atomic bombs and understand its diverse partners, building on one another’s ideas and express our own
major effects on wars and issues that follow clearly and persuasively

• Evaluate various explanations for actions or events and determine which

explanation best accords with textual evidence, acknowledging where the
text leaves matters uncertain.

• Integrate and evaluate multiple sources of information presented in

diverse formats and media (e.g., visually, quantitatively, as well as in words)
in order to address a question or solve a problem.

Common Core Standards for English Language Arts

Grades 9–12

READING

Integration of Knowledge and Ideas

7. Integrate and evaluate content presented in diverse media and formats, including visually and
quantitatively, as well as in words.

SPEAKING AND LISTENING

Comprehension and Collaboration
1. Prepare for and participate effectively in a range of conversations and collaborations with
diverse partners, building on others' ideas and expressing their own clearly and persuasively.
2. Integrate and evaluate information presented in diverse media and formats, including
visually, quantitatively, and orally.

Presentation of Knowledge and Ideas

4. Present information, findings, and supporting evidence such that listeners can follow the line
of reasoning and the organization, development, and style are appropriate to task, purpose, and
audience.
11.7.7. Students analyze America’s participation in World War
II. Discuss the decision to drop atomic bombs and the consequences of the decision (Hiroshima
and Nagasaki).

CCSS.ELA-LITERACY.RH.11-12.1
Cite specific textual evidence to support analysis of primary and secondary sources, connecting
insights gained from specific details to an understanding of the text as a whole.
CCSS.ELA-LITERACY.RH.11-12.7
Integrate and evaluate multiple sources of information presented in diverse formats and media
(e.g., visually, quantitatively, as well as in words) in order to address a question or solve a
problem.
CCSS.ELA-LITERACY.RH.11-12.3
Evaluate various explanations for actions or events and determine which explanation best
accords with textual evidence, acknowledging where the text leaves matters uncertain
Slide 4

ASSESSING OUR
BACKGROUND
KNOWLEDGE
What do we know about the atomic bomb
and its effects on the Japan?

Find out more about this strategy:

https://www.facinghistory.org/resource-library/teaching-
strategies/k-w-l-charts

Explain KWL chart and how it will guide us to assess our prior knowledge and keep track of what
we’re learning today.

Students will take a few moments to reflect on what they already know about the atomic bomb
in Japan during World War II.
Slide 5

OVERVIEW
A BRIEF HISTORY OF THE ATOMIC BOMB

Overview – Link to short video

On August 6, 1945, the United States, under the leadership of President Harry Truman, ushered
in the Atomic Age by detonating an atomic bomb over the Japanese city of Hiroshima. Three
days later, for reasons that have never been completely agreed upon by historians, the United
States chose to drop a second bomb on the city of Nagasaki.
Over the course of human history, rarely has the world seen the fate of so many people turn on
two actions. These events single-handedly launched the United States into the Cold War and
thus triggered a catastrophic race against the Soviet Union to develop the world’s most
devastating weapons. America’s place in the world was forever changed following those fateful
days, and the effect of President Truman’s decision still reverberates today.

The atomic bomb, and nuclear bombs, are powerful weapons that use nuclear reactions as their
source of explosive energy. Scientists first developed nuclear weapons technology during World
War II. Atomic bombs have been used only twice in war—both times by the United States
against Japan at the end of World War II.
Slide 6

OVERVIEW QUESTIONS

What was the Manhattan Project? What was its goal?

Ultimately, did the decision to use the atomic bomb make the world safer
or more dangerous?

What two places were majorly affected by this bomb?

How might an event like this change your country?

Slide 7

DISCOVERY OF NUCLEAR FISSION

• Fission, the basis of the atomic bomb, was discovered in

Nazi Germany before the beginning of World War II.
• Radiochemists Otto Han and Fritz Strassmann discovered
this cell division with the help of Einstein’s equation and
calculations by Hahn’s former colleague, Lise Meitner.
• Nuclear fission releases a massive amount of energy for
heat and power, while such a chain reaction unchecked
could create an explosions of huge force.

Image from https://www.osti.gov/opennet/manhattan-project-history/

The English word atom comes from the Greek word atomon which means ”that which cannot
be divided”. It was thought impossible by scientists to split the nucleus of an atom, but Otto Han
paved the way to a nuclear age.
Nuclear fission of heavy elements was discovered on December 17, 1938 by German chemists
Otto Han and his assistant Fritz Strassman. Fission is the basis of the atomic bomb and was
discovered with the help of Albert Einstein's E=mc2 equation, and refugee from Nazism, Lise
Meitner, Hahn’s former colleague, who named this cell division fission.

After this discovery of fission it was then clear that the immediate release of energy when
fission occurred in uranium caused several neutrons to boil off colliding with other atoms
continuously emitting energy. This chain reaction while unchecked could create an explosion of
huge force.
Slide 8

EINSTEIN’S
LETTER TO
ROOSEVELT • E=mc2
• Einstein’s values: For or against the use of the atomic
bomb?

Albert Einstein’s explanation that the loss of mass resulting from the splitting process must
have been converted into energy in the form of kinetic energy that could in turn be converted
into heat, also known as E=mc2 was a major factor that lead to the creation of the atomic bomb

Alexander Sachs, unofficial advisor to President Franklin Roosevelt, urged that Einstein should
write directly to the President. Einstein agreed. He was a life-long pacifist who opposed of the
making of weapons. He had been forced to conclude, however, that pacifism would not succeed
against the Nazis, who viewed violence as an end in itself. He could not, he decided, let his
inaction give Germany sole possession of such destructive power.

*Read aloud the letter to give students insight to fill out their guided questions.
Slide 9

GERMAN NUCLEAR PROGRAM

• Uranverein April 1939. “Uranium Club” • By 1944, still no bomb

• No chain reaction • No chain reaction
• Hadn’t enriched uranium • Hadn’t enriched uranium
• Plutonium never considered • Plutonium never considered.
• Werner Heisenberg
• Disadvantages:
1. Scientists leaving Germany
2. Protest
3. Help in the U.S.
4. Lack of support and coordination.

Shortly after Hahn and Strassmann had discovered nuclear fission, Germany began its secret
program called Uranverein, or “uranium club,” in April 1939.

Werner Heisenberg, scientific head of the German nuclear program.

• Many German scientists had left Germany, some of them Jewish émigrés fleeing the new
laws of German National Socialism.
• Other expert scientists left in protest.
• A great many came to the United States to work on the Manhattan Project.
• Hitler’s focus was on developing the V-2, a long-range ballistic missile and would not
support the bomb unless they could produce clear results.

By 1944, it became clear that the Germans had not come close to developing a bomb and only
had advanced preliminary research.
The Germans never achieved a successful chain reaction, had not method of enriching Uranium,
and never seriously considered plutonium as a viable substitute.
Slide 10

JAPANESE BOMB
EFFORT
• RIKEN led by Japanese physicist Yoshino Nishini,
where he built the first cyclotron outside of the United
States.
• RIKEN bombed by Allied forces in 1945.
• Japan never enriched enough uranium to make a
weapon or developed the denotation technology that
went in to the American atomic bombs.
• After Japanese surrendered, they were ordered to
destroy every Japanese cyclotron and the ones from
RIKEN were disassembled and thrown into the Gulf
of Tokyo.

RIKEN was an institute in Tokyo led by Japanese physicist Yoshino Nishini where he succeeded in
building the first cyclotron outside of the U.S. in 1937.

Cyclotron: an apparatus in which charges atomic and subatomic particles are accelerated by
and alternating electric field while allowing an outward spiral or circular path in a magnetic
field.

RIKEN was hit by Allied bombing in April 1945, destroying their thermal diffusion device, and
interrupting the research.

The Japanese military did not consider atomic bomb development a necessity the way American
decision-makers did, as evidenced by the low level of funding and the diversion of resources to
other areas of research. Captain Ito, for example, turned his focus to radar and other electronic
weapons.
Slide 11

THE MANHATTAN PROJECT

• On December 28, 1942, after the threat of German nuclear

technology, President Franklin D. Roosevelt authorized the
research on the atom bomb called the Manhattan Project.
• Characterized by incredible coordination between science,
government, and industry.
• The “Trinity” test was detonated on July 16, 1945 in Los
Alamos, New Mexico.
• The “Gadget” plutonium bomb exploded with approx. 20
kilotons of force, that produced a mushroom could that rose
eight miles high!
• The Legacy

On December 28, 1942, after the threat of German nuclear technology, President Franklin D.
Roosevelt authorized the Manhattan Project.
He ordered and allotment of and initial $500 million and authorized scientists and military
officials to work together on nuclear research

Preliminary research by Ernest Lawrence made a significant discovery of the cyclotron, known
as the “atom smasher” which could accelerate atoms through a vacuum and use
electromagnets to induce collisions at speeds up to 25,000 miles per second.

In Los Alamos, New Mexico, under theoretical physicist J. Robert Oppenheimer, first atomic
bomb, Gadget, was detonated “Trinity Test. Created a mushroom cloud and reached 40,000 feet
high.

The Manhattan Project and its aftermath would spark a nuclear arms race during the Cold War
immediately following World War II. It also influenced other nuclear programs in the Soviet
Union, United Kingdom, France, and other countries.

It also contributed to peaceful nuclear innovations.

Slide 12

POTSDAM Key Points:

DECLARATION 1.We-the President of the United States, the President of
the National Government of the Republic of China, and
the Prime Minister of Great Britain, representing the
hundreds of millions of our countrymen, have conferred
and agree that Japan shall be given an opportunity to
end this war.
13. We call upon the government of Japan to proclaim now
the unconditional surrender of all Japanese armed
forces, and to provide proper and adequate assurances
of their good faith in such action. The alternative for
Japan is prompt and utter destruction.
Slide 13

POTSDAM DECLARATION
CONT…
o Truman’s first attempt at negotiation with Japan
o Called for Japan’s unconditional surrender and an end to
Militarism in Japan
o Issued on July 26
o Japan refused the Declaration
o The United States did not want to invade Japan, they reasoned
that using the atomic bomb would deliver a huge blow to
Japan
o This would save the lives of hundreds of thousands of
American troops.

Many historians believe that the main reason for the use of the bomb was retaliation for the
surprise and brutal attack on Pearl Harbor.
United States came with a new tactic to force Japan to surrender – By Potsdam Declaration.

Potsdam Declaration: Was an ultimatum issued by the U.S., Great Britain, and China calling for
the unconditional surrender of Japan.

Terms of this Declaration

• Complete disarmament
• Occupation of certain areas
• Creation of a “responsible government”
• Promised Japan would not be enslaves as a race or destroyed as a nation”
• Ended with warning of prompt destruction if Japan failed to surrender

President Harry Truman called for Japan’s surrender with the “Potsdam Declaration”. This
promised “prompt and utter destruction” if Japan did not surrender.
Slide 14

AMERICA’S VIEW

• Americans feared no hope of

negotiation
• A cease fire was non-
negotiable
• They thought that if the
United States dropped the
atomic bomb, surrender and
peace would probably occur.

At the time of the war, Americans were suffering many causalities and the Japanese were
showing no sign of negotiation.

In September 1945, the National Opinion Research Center at the University of Chicago asked
Americans what they would have done if they had been the one to decide whether or not to
use the atomic bomb against Japan. At the time, a plurality of Americans supported the course
chosen by the Truman administration: 44% said they would have bombed one city at a time,
and another 23% would have wiped out cities in general – in other words, two-thirds would
have bombed some urban area. Just 26% would have dropped the bomb on locations that had
no people. And only 4% would not have used the bomb.

Not surprisingly, there is a large generation gap among Americans in attitudes toward the
bombings of Hiroshima. Seven-in-ten Americans ages 65 and older say the use of atomic
weapons was justified, but only 47% of 18- to 29-year-olds agree. There is a similar partisan
divide: 74% of Republicans but only 52% of Democrats see the use of nuclear weapons at the
end of World War II as warranted.
Slide 15

Surrender was not an option for Japan

JAPAN’S VIEW OF
UNCONDITIONAL Emperor Hirohito
SURRENDER
Potsdam Reaction

Blame on military

They insisted on continuing with preparation for final battles on the home islands, even after
Okinawa resistance had ended.
Japan had no oil, its cities were in ruins, and its navy and air capability were virtually non-
existent.
After even more bombing from the U.S., Hirohito was forced to calculate their losses and go
forward with peace.
This was contemplated up until the Potsdam conference, they rejected the four-power
ultimatum and relied on the success of the Foreign Ministry’s peace overtures to Moscow.

Months after surrender, the emperor and Foreign Minister Togo Shigenori placed all the blame
on the military, claiming they had been forced to reject Potsdam terms in fear of a military coup.
Slide 16

“LITTLE BOY” AND

“FAT MAN”

• August 6, the united States

dropped the first atomic
bomb known as ”Little
Boy” on Hiroshima.
• August 8, a second bomb,
“Fat Man”, was then
dropped on Nagasaki.

Known as “Little Boy,” the uranium gun-type bomb exploded with about thirteen kilotons of
force. The B-29 plane that carried Little Boy from Tinian Island in the western Pacific to
Hiroshima was known as the Enola Gay.

Weight: 9,700 lbs.

Length: 10 ft,; diameter 20 inches
Fuel: Highly enriches uranium
Approx. 1.38% of the uranium fuel actually fissioned.
Explosive Force: Equivalent to 15,000 tons of TNT

Three days later, a second atomic bomb was dropped on Nagasaki – a 21-kiloton plutonium
device known as "Fat Man.”

Weight: 10,800 lbs.

Length: 10ft 8in; Diameter 60 in.
Fuel: Highly enriched plutonium 239
Bomb Initiator: Beryllium – Polonium
Efficiency: 10x that of Little Boy
Approx. 1 kilogram of plutonium fissioned
Explosive force: Equivalent to 21,000 tones of TNT
Slide 17

FISSION BOMB
Slide 18

HIROSHIMA
Before and after bombing

According to most estimates the bombing of Hiroshima killed approximately 70,000 people due
to immediate effects of blast.

Estimate of total deaths by the end of 1945 “140,000” due to burns, radiation and related
diseases.

The circle here indicates the target of the bomb. The bomb directly killed an estimated 80,000
people. By the end of the year, injury and radiation brought the total number of deaths to
between 90,000 and 166,000.
Slide 19

NAGASAKI

• The death toll (of all related deaths)

was about 135,000.
• More than 40% of the city was
destroyed.
• 75,000 instantaneous deaths, 50,000
explosion injured.

Between 90,000 and 166,000 people are believed to have died from the bomb in the four-
month period following the explosion. The U.S. Department of Energy has estimated that after
five years there were perhaps 200,000 or more fatalities as a result of the bombing, while the
city of Hiroshima has estimated that 237,000 people were killed directly or indirectly by the
bomb's effects, including burns, radiation sickness, and cancer.

It is estimated that between 40,000 and 75,000 people died immediately following the atomic
explosion, while another 60,000 people suffered severe injuries. Total deaths by the end of 1945
may have reached 80,000. Japan surrendered on August 14.
Slide 20

TRUMAN’S SPEECH

“The world will note that the first atomic bomb was dropped on Hiroshima, a
military base. We run the race of discovery against the Germans. We have used
it in order to sharpen the agony of war in order to save the lives of thousands
and thousands of young Americans. We shall continue to use it until we
completely destroy Japan’s power to make war.”

“El mundo notará que la primera bomba atómica fue lanzada en Hiroshima, una
base militar. Corremos la carrera del descubrimiento contra los alemanes. Lo
hemos utilizado para agudizar la agonía de la guerra para salvar las vidas de
miles y miles de jóvenes estadounidenses. Seguiremos usándolo hasta que
destruyamos completamente el poder de Japón para hacer la guerra ”
Slide 21

IMMEDIATE
AFTERMATH
• Most deaths and injuries
occurred when people
were trapped in their
burning homes or struck
by debris.
• Of the city's 90,000
buildings, 60,000 were
destroyed
• This left many survivors
homeless
Slide 22

The Japanese surrendered on

September 2, 1945.

JAPAN’S
The ceremony took place on
SURRENDER the USS Missouri accompanied
by British ships in Tokyo Bay.

Japan agree to ceasefire and

release of Prisoners of War.

Truman’s last note: “Certainly prior to 31 December 1945, and in all probability prior to
November 1945, Japan would have surrendered even if the atomic bombs had not been
dropped, even if Russia had not entered the war, and even if no invasion had been planned or
contemplated."
Slide 23

THE END

Based off the information about the discovery and creation of the atomic bomb and the deciding
factors to use it, do you think the United States was justified in taking these measures and dropping
the atomic bomb, killing hundreds of thousands of Japanese? Answer this essential question as well
as reflect on all the ways things could have been different and lives could have been saved.
Slide 24

REFERENCES
Atomic bomb dropped on Hiroshima. (2009, November 13). Retrieved April 1, 2019, from https://www.history.com/this-day-
in-history/atomic-bomb-dropped-on-hiroshima#&gid=ci023ad3afe00024ab&pid=atomic-bomb-detonates-in-
nagasaki

Bix, H. P. (n.d.).Why Did the Japanese Delay Surrendering? Retrieved from https://historynewsnetwork.org/article/12947

Dannen, G. (2017, July 31). Einstein to Roosevelt, August 2, 1939. Retrieved April 11, 2019, from http://www.dannen.com/ae-
fdr.html

Japanese Atomic Bomb Project. (2016, May 25). Retrieved April 11, 2019, from
https://www.atomicheritage.org/history/japanese-atomic-bomb-project

Stokes, B., & Stokes, B. (2015, August 04). 70 years after Hiroshima, opinions have shifted on use of atomic bomb. Retrieved
April 3, 2019, fromhttps://www.pewresearch.org/fact-tank/2015/08/04/70-years-after-Hiroshima-opinions-have-
shifted-on-use-of-atomic-bomb/

The Manhattan Project. (2017, May 12). Retrieved April 10, 2019, from https://www.atomicheritage.org/history/manhattan-
project