On August 6, 1945, a uranium gun-type device (code name "Little Boy") was detonated over the Japanese city of Hiroshima.
On the night of March 9–10, 1945, Operation Meetinghouse commenced and 334 Boeing B-29 Superfortress bombers took off to raid, with 279 of them dropping 1,665 tons of incendiaries and explosives on Tokyo.
By early August 1945, an estimated 450,000 people had died as the U.S.
had intensely firebombed a total of 67 Japanese cities. In late June 1945, as the U.S.
Truman realized he could not afford such a horrendous casualty rate, especially since over 400,000 American combatants had already died fighting in both the European and the Pacific theaters of the war. On July 26, 1945, the United States, the United Kingdom, and the Republic of China issued a Potsdam Declaration that called for the unconditional surrender of Japan.
At the time of its use, there were only two atomic bombs available, and despite the fact that more were in production back in mainland U.S., the third bomb wouldn't be available for combat until September. On August 6, 1945, the uranium-type nuclear weapon codenamed "Little Boy" was detonated over the Japanese city of Hiroshima with an energy of about , destroying nearly 50,000 buildings (including the [of the
In 1974, India, and in 1998, Pakistan, two countries that were openly hostile toward each other, developed nuclear weapons.
South Africa also manufactured several complete nuclear weapons in the 1980s, but subsequently became the first country to voluntarily destroy their domestically made weapons stocks and abandon further production (1990s).
Nuclear weapons have been detonated on over 2,000 occasions for testing purposes and demonstrations. After the dissolution of the Soviet Union in 1991 and the resultant end of the Cold War, the threat of a major nuclear war between the two nuclear superpowers was generally thought to have declined.
In 1974, India, and in 1998, Pakistan, two countries that were openly hostile toward each other, developed nuclear weapons.
Such a horrific catastrophe as global nuclear warfare would almost certainly cause permanent damage to most complex life on the planet, its ecosystems, and the global climate. A study presented at the annual meeting of the American Geophysical Union in December 2006 asserted that even a small-scale regional nuclear war could produce as many direct fatalities as all of World War II and disrupt the global climate for a decade or more.
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