One of the fearsome innovations of World War II was the use of atomic weaponry in warfare. Shortly before the war started, American and British researchers had studied nuclear weapon feasibility. The Manhattan Project, the American nuclear effort, was carried out under the auspices of the US Army, and on July 16, 1945, the first atomic bomb was detonated at White Sands, New Mexico, in a test run. On August 6, American airmen dropped a uranium bomb on the Japanese city of Nagasaki; three days later, a plutonium bomb was dropped on another Japanese city, Hiroshima. The combined immediate death toll for the two cities was 148,000. Japan signed formal documents ending the war on September 2, 1945. By the end of the war the balance of power not just of Europe but the world had changed.
This use of nuclear weapons ushered in what was known as the Atomic Age (a phrase coined by a journalist for the New York Times), a period where the popular imagination foresaw unlimited energy with atomic power being used for peaceful means. The optimism of the Atomic Age and the national confidence that arose with the United States' emergence on the world scene as an unquestioned super power after World War II went hand in hand.
Additional resources for further exploration
Find resources for teaching about the Harlem Renaissance at the link below.
http://americanhistory.mrdonn.org/harlem-renaissance.html
Find resources for teaching about the Roaring 20s at the link below.
http://americanhistory.mrdonn.org/roaring20s.html
Find resources for teaching about the Great Depression at the link below.
http://americanhistory.mrdonn.org/greatdepression.html
The two links below provide resources for teaching students about the Holocaust.
http://fcit.coedu.usf.edu/holocaust/default.htm
http://www.ushmm.org/educators
Find resources for teaching about segregation and Rosa Parks and the Montgomery Bus Boycott at the link below.
http://www.history.com/topics/black-history/montgomery-bus-boycott
