Early in the morning of July 16, 1945, the success or failure of the first atomic bomb blast was tested in the New Mexico desert 120 miles south of Santa Fe. The tower on which the bomb sat when detonated was vaporized. Thus, the Manhattan Project came to an explosive end!
The Manhattan Project created the first nuclear bombs.
The Trinity test is shown.
In a white blaze that stretched from the basin of the Jemez Mountains in northern New Mexico to the still-dark skies, The Gadget ushered in the Atomic Age. The light of the explosion then turned orange as the atomic fireball began shooting upwards at 360 feet per second, reddening and pulsing as it cooled. The characteristic mushroom cloud of radioactive vapor materialized at 30,000 feet. Beneath the cloud, all that remained of the soil at the blast site were fragments of jade green radioactive glass, all of this caused by the heat of the reaction.
It is also said by Mary Bellis, who wrote the article “History of the Atomic Bomb and the Manhattan Project” that a blind girl saw the flash 120 miles away.
Source: The Atom Bomb and How It Affected People
With the detonation of the atomic bomb being deemed a success, the question then became "On whom was the bomb to be dropped?" Germany was the original target, but the Germans had already surrendered. The only belligerent remaining was Japan. The decision was made in Retaliation four years after the bombing of Pearl Harbor.
That is another story...
Retaliation
After Pearl Harbor Rare Photos
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