The atomic bomb and nuclear bombs are potent weapons that generate explosive energy through nuclear processes. During World War II, scientists created the first nuclear weapons technology. Only twice in the history of warfare have atomic bombs been deployed, both times by the US against Japan at the close of World War II, in Hiroshima and Nagasaki. Following that conflict, there was a time of nuclear proliferation, and during the Cold War, the US and the USSR engaged in a global nuclear arms race for domination.
Hydrogen and nuclear bombs
The first atomic weapon was made possible by a discovery made by nuclear scientists in a Berlin, Germany, laboratory in 1938 after Otto Hahn, Lise Meitner, and Fritz Strassman discovered nuclear fission.
An atom of radioactive material undergoes nuclear fission when its nucleus breaks into two or more smaller nuclei, resulting in an abrupt, potent release of energy. Nuclear technologies, including weapons, became possible after the discovery of nuclear fission.
Fission reactions provide the energy for atomic bombs. Nuclear fusion and nuclear fission are both used in thermonuclear weapons, such as hydrogen bombs. Another reaction in which two lighter atoms unite to release energy is nuclear fusion.
Manhattan Project
The Manhattan Project was established on December 28, 1942, with approval from President Franklin D. Roosevelt, to bring together numerous scientists and military personnel engaged in nuclear research.
The American-led endeavor to create a working atomic bomb during World War II was known as the Manhattan Project. Fears that German scientists had been developing a nuclear weapon since the 1930s prompted the launch of the project.
Who Was the Atomic Bomb's Inventor?
The "father of the atomic bomb," theoretical physicist J. Robert Oppenheimer, oversaw much of the work on the Manhattan Project in Los Alamos, New Mexico.
The Trinity Test, the first atomic bomb to be successfully detonated, took place on July 16, 1945, in a remote desert location close to Alamogordo, New Mexico. It brought about the Atomic Age and produced a massive mushroom cloud that reached a height of 40,000 feet.
Hiroshima and Nagasaki Bombs
By 1945, researchers at Los Alamos had created two different kinds of atomic bombs: "the Little Boy," which used uranium, and "the Fat Man," which used plutonium. Both uranium and plutonium are radioactive substances.
While the war in Europe had come to an end in April, American and Japanese forces continued to engage in combat in the Pacific. The Potsdam Declaration, issued by President Harry Truman in late July, demanded Japan's capitulation. If Japan would not submit, the proclamation threatened "prompt and total annihilation."
The Enola Gay, a B-29 bomber aircraft, was used by the United States to drop its first atomic bomb over the Japanese city of Hiroshima on August 6, 1945. With a blast of around 13 kilotons, the "Little Boy" destroyed five square miles of the city and instantaneously killed 80,000 people. Later, radiation exposure would cause tens of thousands of additional deaths.
Three days later, the United States detonated a second atomic bomb on Nagasaki after the Japanese did not instantly submit. On impact, the "Fat Man" is thought to have murdered 40,000 people. The second bomb's primary target had not been Nagasaki. The city of Kokura, where Japan housed one of its biggest weapons industries, was initially the target of American bombers, but smoke from firebombing missions covered the skies over Kokura. The American aircraft then moved to face Nagasaki, their secondary objective.
On August 15, or "V-J Day," Japanese Emperor Hirohito declared his nation's surrender, ending World War II, citing the horrific might of "a new and most merciless bomb."
The Cold War
In the years immediately following World War II, only the United States had nuclear weapons. At first, the Soviet Union lacked the know-how and raw resources needed to produce nuclear bombs.
But in a matter of years, the U.S.S.R. had acquired the blueprints for a fission-style bomb and identified local uranium sources in Eastern Europe thanks to a network of spies engaged in international espionage. The Soviet Union conducted their first nuclear bomb test on August 29, 1949.
In response, the United States started a program in 1950 to create more sophisticated thermonuclear weapons. Nuclear testing and research were high-profile objectives for various nations, particularly the United States and the Soviet Union, since the Cold War weapons race had begun.
Cuban Missile Crisis
Each global powerhouse would accumulate tens of thousands of nuclear bombs over the following few decades. During this period, nuclear weapons were also being developed by other nations, including as China, France, and Great Britain.
In October 1962, it seemed as though nuclear war was about to break out. Only 90 miles from the coast of the United States, the Soviet Union has placed nuclear-armed missiles on Cuba. This led to the Cuban Missile Crisis, a 13-day military and political standoff.
In order to defuse the perceived danger, President John F. Kennedy imposed a naval blockade around Cuba and made it apparent that the US was ready to use force if necessary.
When the United States accepted Nikita Khrushchev's offer to withdraw the Cuban missiles in exchange for a commitment from the United States not to invade Cuba, disaster was averted.
Three Mile Island
In the aftermath of World War II and following significant nuclear weapons testing in the Pacific throughout the 1940s and 1950s, many Americans started to worry about the health and environmental impacts of radioactive fallout—the radiation left in the environment after a nuclear bomb.
In 1961, at the height of the Cold War, the antinuclear movement began to take shape as a social movement. Around 50,000 women participated in rallies against nuclear weapons on November 1, 1961, which were co-organized by activist Bella Abzug in 60 cities across the United States.
Following the Three Mile Island accident—a nuclear meltdown at a Pennsylvania power station in 1979—high profile protests against nuclear reactors in the 1970s and 1980s brought the antinuclear movement back into the public eye.
A million people participated in a march against nuclear weapons and the Cold War nuclear arms race in 1982 in New York City. One of the biggest political demonstrations in American history took place during it.
Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty (NPT)
In 1968, the Soviet Union and the United States took the initiative in negotiating a global treaty to stop the proliferation of nuclear weapons.
The Non-Proliferation Treaty (NPT), commonly known as the Treaty on the Non-Proliferation of Nuclear Weapons, became operative in 1970. It divided the nations of the world into two categories: those that possess nuclear weapons and those that do not.
The five nations that were known to have nuclear weapons at the time—the United States, the Soviet Union, Great Britain, France, and China—were considered to be nuclear weapons states.
The treaty stipulates that nuclear weapon states will refrain from using their arsenals or assisting non-nuclear states in acquiring them. Additionally, they decided to gradually diminish their nuclear arsenals in order to eventually achieve complete disarmament. States without nuclear weapons have committed not to develop or acquire them.
There were still thousands of nuclear weapons dispersed over Eastern Europe and Central Asia when the Soviet Union fell in the early 1990s. The locations of many of the weapons were Belarus, Kazakhstan, and Ukraine. These weapons were switched off and delivered back to Russia.
Illegal Nuclear Weapon States
Some nations refused to ratify the NPT because they desired the freedom to build their own nuclear arsenal. India conducted the first nuclear weapon test outside of the NPT in 1974.
Israel, South Sudan, Pakistan, and other nations are also not signatories to the NTP. A known nuclear weapons program exists in Pakistan. Israel has never formally acknowledged or denied having a nuclear weapons program, despite the fact that it is commonly thought that it has nuclear weapons. Nuclear weapons are neither known to exist or are thought to exist in South Sudan.
North Korea
In 2017, North Korea conducted two intercontinental ballistic missile tests, one of which was purportedly capable of hitting the US mainland. North Korea asserted in September 2017 that it has successfully tested a hydrogen bomb small enough to fit on top of an intercontinental ballistic missile.
Despite being a signatory to the NPT, Iran has stated it is able to quickly start producing nuclear weapons.
Sources
Pioneering Nuclear Science: The Discovery of Nuclear Fission. International Atomic Energy Agency.
The Development and Proliferation of Nuclear Weapons. NobelPrize.org.
Here are the facts about North Korea’s nuclear test. NPR.
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