1. The End of the War & the Results of WWII

2. 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.

3. 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

4. Winston Churchill, Franklin D
Winston Churchill, Franklin D. Roosevelt and Joseph Stalin at Yalta in Feb
Attlee, Truman, and Stalin at Potsdam. July-Aug
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.

5. 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.

6. Holocaust Map of Concentration Camps

11. 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.

12. 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

13. 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.

14. The patterns of clothing were permanently burned into the skin because of the intense flash of light.

15. Hair loss due to radiation exposure

16. 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

17. 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:
"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")
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, 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.

18. 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.

19. Hiroshima- A Survivor’s Story
Four years after arriving in Japan, only 15-year-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.

20. Mitsuo watches the object fall behind a mountain, Mount Hiji
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 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.

21. The Effect Of The Atomic Bomb.

22. 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.

24. 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.

25. 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.

26. The countries behind the iron curtain are shaded in red
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.

27. Germany divided into separate zones after WWII ends
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.

28. Berlin was located in East Germany (communist) but the city itself was divided into both democratic and communist zones.
From , 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.

30. 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.

31. 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

32. 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
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

33. 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

34. 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

35. Before: picture of the land that would become the American suburb of Levittown, in Long Island, NY.

36. After: An aerial view of the suburban development of Levittown as a result of the baby boom.