Transcript Results_of_WWII1

The End of the War
& the Results of
WWII
The Decision to Drop
Nazi Germany surrendered
unconditionally at 2:41 a.m., May
7, ending World War II in Europe.
At midnight May 8, the guns
stopped firing. The Pacific war
with Japan, who was Germany's
ally, continued.
U. S. President Harry S. Truman,
English Prime Minister Winston
Churchill, and Soviet Premier
Joseph Stalin met in Potsdam
(Potsdam Conference), Germany
between July 17 and August 2,
1945, to discuss strategies to end
the war in the Pacific.
The Potsdam Conference
When the Potsdam Conference
opened, the news of the successful
testing of an atomic bomb at Trinity
Site, New Mexico, reached President
Truman. The atomic bomb was now
a reality. The creation of the bomb
was a secret, its code name the
Manhattan Project. President
Truman's first action was to call
together his chief advisors for their
opinion on whether the bomb should
be used. The consensus was that it
would help bring about an early end
to the war with Japan, and would be
dropped on the city of Hiroshima.
Churchill, Truman & Stalin at Potsdam
Winston Churchill, Franklin D. Roosevelt and
Joseph Stalin at Yalta in Feb. 1945.
Attlee, Truman, and Stalin at Potsdam. JulyAug. 1945.
During the Potsdam conference (Germany), Truman mentioned to
Stalin about an unspecified "powerful new weapon"; Stalin, who
knew of its existence long before Truman ever knew through
placing spies inside US borders, encouraged the usage of any
weapon that would hasten the end of the war. At the Yalta
Conference in Crimea(Russia/Ukraine) the Allied leaders meet to
discuss the final defeat and occupation of Nazi Germany.
Discovery of the Holocaust
Near the end of the war allied troops discovered the
concentration camps set up by the Nazis. At these
camps Jews worked for the German war effort. In
some cases they were used in German medical
experiments as guinea pigs. At Auschwitz over 6,000
Jews were gassed per day. By the end of the war Hitler
had killed over 1/3 of the Jews in Europe, approx. 6
million people.
Holocaust Map of Concentration Camps
Manhattan Project & Atomic Age
The United States, led by physicist Robert Oppenheimer,
developed an atomic bomb under the secretive Manhattan
Project. By mid-1945 there was a belief by the Americans that the
Japanese were too proud to surrender. This led American
President Harry S. Truman to order the dropping of the atomic
bomb. On August 6, 1945 the U.S. bombed Hiroshima. More than
70,000 people were killed and 61,000 were injured instantly.
Many people were vaporized, and radiation burns scorched others.
The Japanese refused surrender and on Aug. 9 the U.S. dropped a
second bomb on Nagasaki. Aug. 10, 1945 Japan surrenders ending
WWII. This signaled the beginning of the nuclear arms race and
the Cold War.
Atomic bomb test explosion
Los Alamos was so secret that officially it did
not exist. Babies born there received birth
certificates indicating they were born at box
1663.
Watch towers and prison-like security
surrounded the U.S. top security, top secret
Los Alamos atomic bomb development
facility during WWII
Enola Gay & The Little
Boy
Little Boy was the first nuclear
weapon used in warfare. It exploded
approximately 1,800 feet over
Hiroshima, Japan, on the morning of
August 6, 1945, with a force equal to
20,000 tons of TNT. Immediate deaths
were between 70,000 to 130,000.
Little Boy was dropped from a B-29
bomber piloted by U.S. Army Air Force
Col. Paul W. Tibbets. Tibbets had
named the plane Enola Gay after his
mother the night before the atomic
attack.
The patterns of clothing were
permanently burned into the skin
because of the intense flash of light.
Hair loss due to radiation exposure
Atomic Blast Shadows
The shadow of the parapets are imprinted on the surface of the bridge,
2,890 feet (880 meters) south-south-west of the hypocenter. These
shadows give a clue as to the exact location of the hypocenter
Little Boy
After being released, it took about a minute for
Little Boy to reach the point of explosion. Little
Boy exploded at approximately 8:15 a.m. (Japan
Standard Time) when it reached an altitude of
2,000 ft above the building that is today called
the "A-Bomb Dome."
The July 24, 1995 issue of Newsweek writes:
The picture above shows the devastating effect
that the “Little Boy” bomb had on just one small
part of the city.
"Little Boy" is the nick name given to the atomic
bomb dropped on Hiroshima on August 6, 1945. It
was Monday morning. Little Boy was dropped from
the Enola Gay, one of the B-29 bombers that flew
over Hiroshima on that day.
"A bright light filled the plane," wrote
Lt. Col. Paul Tibbets, the pilot of the
Enola Gay, the B-29 that dropped the
first atomic bomb. "We turned back to
look at Hiroshima. The city was hidden
by that awful cloud...boiling up,
mushrooming." For a moment, no one
spoke. Then everyone was talking.
"Look at that! Look at that! Look at
that!" exclaimed the co-pilot, Robert
Lewis, pounding on Tibbets's shoulder.
Lewis said he could taste atomic
fission; it tasted like lead. Then he
turned away to write in his journal. "My
God," he asked himself, "what have we
done?" (special report, "Hiroshima: August 6,
1945")
Click on the speaker to hear a news broadcast
announcing the dropping of the first atomic
bomb on the city of Hiroshima, Japan.
Although the bomb Little Boy was ready for
use on August 2, 1945, bad weather delayed
dropping it over Japan. At 8:15 on the morning
of August 6, 1945, a large portion of the city of
Hiroshima was destroyed when Little Boy was
dropped. Of a population of 256,000, more
than 70,000 people died immediately.
Approximately half of the city had been
levelled.
Hiroshima- A Survivor’s Story
Four years after arriving in Japan, only 15year-old Mitsuo and his mother still live in
Hiroshima. His eldest brother, Toshio, is in the
Japanese merchant marines.
It's a bright, clear day. Mitsuo leaves his house
around 7:30 a.m. and walks to work. He gets
there about 8 a.m. He and his friends gather
outside, waiting for their supervisor to give
today's pep talk.
Mitsuo's mother leaves for work. Every day,
she takes the same streetcar. But today she
realizes she has forgotten some papers. She
runs back into the house to get them. Mitsuo's
mother misses her usual streetcar, and has to
wait for the next one.
It's nearly 8:15 a.m. American B-29 bombers
appear overhead. The sirens wail, but Mitsuo
and his co-workers ignore them, as usual. The
planes are headed in the direction of Tokyo.
Then, for the first time ever, Mitsuo sees the
planes reappear over Hiroshima. They're in
position now. Looking in the sky, Mitsuo sees
an object. In the instant it takes for the bomb to
drop, he feels no fear, only curiosity about this
thing that glistens in the sun.
Mitsuo watches the object fall behind a mountain, Mount Hiji. The
exact spot where the bomb explodes is called "ground zero."
Mitsuo is about two miles away, with the mountain in between. At
the moment of explosion, he sees a blinding flash of light. Then
the shock wave hits. Mitsuo is blown several feet into the air and
knocked briefly unconscious. He awakens to see a giant
mushroom cloud rising into the air. Mitsuo is a witness to the first
atomic bombing in history. And Mount Hiji, which shields him from
the radiation, will help him live to tell about it.
Mitsuo's mother is outside when the bomb explodes. She is about
three miles from ground zero. She is not injured except for a burn
on her neck. In another 20 years, cancer will develop in that spot,
and she'll die from it in 1969. Still, Mitsuo's mother is luckier than
the people on the street car that she missed. They all die in the
blast.
These Pictures show
the injuries of some of
the survivors of the
atomic blast.
The Effect Of The Atomic Bomb.
Little Boy
Fat Man
Three days later, on August 9,
the U.S. dropped a plutonium
implosion-type bomb (Fat Man)
on the city of Nagasaki. It was
Only after the second bomb was
Dropped that Japan knew they
Had to surrender.
Creation of the United Nations
The United Nations was formed in 1945 to maintain
peace, bring an end to war, improve the standard of
living for all nations, and to promote human rights. It
was led by the security council (Britain, France, U.S.,
U.S.S.R., & China) and included all major powers of the
world.
Birth of the Cold War
The Cold War resulted from disputes between
democratic and communist nations during WWII. The
US and the USSR could not agree on how to deal with
Germany at the end of WWII. The US did not want
reparations to be paid while the USSR did. This led to
the division of Germany into separate zones (both
communist and democratic). A power struggle emerged
between the superpowers leading to an arms race and
the formation of alliances based upon communist or
democratic lines throughout the world.
The countries
behind the iron
curtain are shaded
in red. Yugoslavia
(in grey) was
independent of the
Eastern Bloc, yet it
was still communist
run.
Germany divided into
separate zones after
WWII ends. The
creation of West
Germany (democratic)
and East Germany
(communist) was a
result of the cold war.
Berlin was located in
East Germany
(communist) but the
city itself was divided
into both democratic
and communist zones.
From 1949-1961, almost
three million East
Germans escaped to the
West. In July 1961
alone, 30,000 fled,
precipitating another
Berlin Crisis on August
13, 1961 when East
German authorities built
a 28-mile-long wall
(euphemistically called
the "antifascist
protective barrier")
along the border to
prevent East Germans
from escaping to the
West.
Baby Boom Generation
With the return of peace many Canadians began to marry and
start families. As a result the population soared in Canada after
the war. Between 1945 and 1965 the baby boom occurred.
The average family had 3-4 children. As these children aged
society had to change to accommodate the large numbers. This
led to a boom in infrastructure, employment and housing.
How did the birthrate rise and fall during the baby boom years in the
US?
1940
2,559,000 births per year
1946
3,311,000 births per year
1955
4,097,000 births per year
1957
4,300,000 births per year
1964
4,027,000 births per year
1974
3,160,000 births per year
Symbols of the Baby Boom in Suburbia
1950
1960
Hot Dog Production (millions of lbs)
750
1050
Potato Chip Production (millions of lbs)
320
532
Sales of lawn and porch furniture (millions of dollars)
53.6
145.2
Sales of power mowers (millions of dollars)
1.0
3.8
Sales of floor polishers (millions of dollars)
0.24
1.0
Sales of Encyclopaedia (millions of dollars)
72
300
Number of Children age 5-14
24.3
35.5
Number of baseball Little Leagues
776
5,700
Music the Baby Boomers Have Taken to Heart
Rock Around the Clock
by Bill Haley and His Comets
Heartbreak Hotel
by Elvis Presley
Smoke Gets in Your Eyes
by The Platters
Save the Last Dance for Me
by The Drifters
Duke of Earl
by Gene Chandler
I Want to Hold Your Hand
by The Beatles
You've Lost That Lovin' Feelin'
by The Righteous Brothers
The Sounds of Silence
by Simon and Garfunkel
Aquarius
by The Fifth Dimension
American Pie
by Don McLean
Fads of the Baby Boomers
Hula Hoops
Frozen Foods
Poodle Skirts and Saddle Shoes
Panty Raids
Barbie and GI Joe Dolls
Bikinis
Frisbees
Yo-yos
Ouija Boards
Dune Buggies
Before: picture of the land that would become the American suburb of Levittown, in Long Island, NY.
After: An aerial view of the suburban development of Levittown as a result of the baby boom.