In the early evening of July 16, 1945 in the desolate, sandy Alamogordo region of southern New Mexico, a tower stood against the stormy sky. On its top sat an awful new weapon.
At 5:30 p.m. this first atomic bomb exploded. The flash from the blast lit up mountain peaks ten miles away. It was followed by a huge roar and hurricane winds. Then a boiling, multicolored cloud rose 40,000 feet into the air. When the heat and dust dispersed, the scientists could see that where there once was a tower, there was nothing but a huge crater.
The atomic bomb, under development since 1940 at a cost of $2 billion, had performed exactly as planned.
Less than a month later it was introduced to the world. On August 6, a B-29 Superfortress named the "Enola Gay" dropped one of the new bombs on Hiroshima, Japan.
The entire business district was vaporized except for the skeletons of three concrete buildings. The Japanese government estimates 240,000 died as a result of the blast.
Three days later, the bomber "Great Artiste" dropped a more advanced bomb on Nagasaki. About 35,000 were killed there, a lesser number because it was a smaller city.
Seeing the hopelessness of fighting against such weapons, Japan surrendered on Aug. 15, ending the Second World War.
