Dropping the Atom Bomb on Hiroshima and Nagasaki

During World War II, a mid-20th-century conflict that involved several nations, the United States military dropped atomic bombs on the Japanese cities of Hiroshima and Nagasaki (Wikipedia, 2005). The first atomic bomb was exploded over Hiroshima on August 5, 1945; the second was detonated over Nagasaki four days later. The bombs killed more than 120,000 people immediately and about twice as many over time. Many of the victims were civilians.

As a result of the bombings, Japan surrendered unconditionally. These bombings went down in history as the first and only nuclear attacks, and have been the source of much debate in the sixty years that have followed. This paper discusses the decision to drop the atom bombs on Hiroshima and Nagasaki in an effort to demonstrate that the decision to drop these bombs was indeed the right decision.

The atomic bombs were...
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