How Did The Atomic Bomb Affect The World

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The atomic bomb was dropped on the city of Hiroshima on August 6, 1945 and three days later on Nagasaki killing at least 130,000 people and marking the first time nuclear bombs would be used for weapons in a war. The dropping of the two bombs would forever change mankind effecting the world for decades to come. The dropping of the atomic bomb had an irreversible effect on mankind influencing the rest of the Second World War as well as events that would come long after it. At the time, the atomic bomb shocked the world demonstrating how deadly and effective it was. The bomb had a huge effect on ending the war early as well as a detrimental effect on people living in Japan. The atomic bomb was used to bring the swift end to the Second World…show more content…
It was believed that the atomic bomb was the main cause of the Cold war because of the mistrust that it led to between the United States and Soviet Union. The Manhattan project (the development of the first nuclear bomb) was kept secret from the Soviet Union during the Second World War, even though the two countries were allies at the time. Although the Soviet Union knew about the bomb through spies in America, it wasn’t until it was dropped on Hiroshima that the Soviet Union saw the magnitude of the bomb. The bomb also helped lead to the nuclear arms race, a race where the Soviet Union and United states raced to stock pile as many nukes possible. Other countries started to develop nuclear bombs as well including China, UK and France. At the height of the cold war United States and Russia each had over 30,000 nuclear bombs, enough bombs to destroy the world a few times over. Although nuclear bombs were deadly and were mainly used for weapons up until 1960, they had some other uses to and made huge advancements in technology. The technology that stemmed from the nuclear bomb was huge advancements in making energy. Instead of the uncontrolled reactions that happen in nuclear bombs, scientists were able to make controlled reactions that released huge amounts of energy that could…show more content…
The nuclear bomb could have lead us to nuclear war and came close to on numerous occasions. On June 3, 1980, a 50 cent computer chip that was broken, mistakenly announced nuclear war. The screen that usually read 0 incoming missiles changed to 220 incoming missiles causing the United States to almost launch their own nukes as well. Another time in 1950, a blown fuse caused the loss of communication with every single early warning stations in northern Canada used to detect incoming nukes almost caused nuclear war as well. Every single communication line linking the radar stations to North American Aerospace Defense Command (NORAD), including the civilian and backup lines ran through one single telephone relay station in Colorado. When the fuse blew and NORAD lost all communication with the bases, the only possible explanation was that they had been bombed to stop the United States from detecting incoming bombs. All over the United States, B-52’s with nuclear payloads lined up on runways and started their engines awaiting orders to take off and deploy their nuclear payloads. It wasn’t until a B-52, that happened to be flying next to one of the radar sites, noticed the lack of smoke and called in that it was a false alarm. If a nuclear war had of started, the United States, and Soviet Union possessed enough nuclear bombs to kill most humans on earth.
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