The atomic bomb

• The USA dropped an atomic bomb on Hiroshima 6th August 1945 and on Nagasaki 9th August 1945
• Over 120000 Japanese civilians were killed
• Knowing only the USA knew how to make this bomb made Truman more confident at Potsdam
• The countries of Western Europe felt more secure placing themselves under American protection
• Stalin felt more determined to create a ‘buffer zone’ of communist countries in Eastern Europe to protect the USSR from the West
• Cold War tensions increased, but arguably the terrible consequences of the atomic bomb made war less likely
• Soviet scientists delevoped their own bomb on 29 August 1949. This was the start of the arms race