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Einstein published his theory of special relativity
In 1905, Albert Einstein published his theory on special relativity and over the next 30 years, scientists put this into practice -
German breakthrough
In 1938, German scientists had a breakthrough in Einstein’s theory and Albert was worried they would have the power to use destructive power within the Nazi war -
Einstein’s letter
Einstein feared Germany would unleash this power in war, so wrote a letter to President Roosevelt and described how incredible the amounts of energy would be in the Germans could split the Uranium atom. He urged the President to set up a nuclear research project in the US to beat Germany in the race to nuclear technology -
The start of the Second World War
On September 1st 1939, Germany invaded Poland, which led Britain and France to declare war on Germany -
Japan signed an alliance with Germany and Italy
Japan had ambitions to to become the dominant power in Asia -
Pearl Harbor
Japan prompted the US to enter the war by bombing the main naval bases at Pearl Harbor in Oahu, Hawaii. More than 2,500 sailors died. -
Declaration of war
The US took the Pearl Harbor attack as a declaration of war from the Japanese, and so Britain and the US declared war on Japan and on December 11th, Germany and Italy declared war on the US -
The Manhattan Project
Now that the US were in the war, it became more important for them to make a nuclear weapon, in order to do this, the US government set up the top secret Manhattan Project which had the task of making the first atom bomb as quickly as possible. This started in Manhattan with early atomic research and soon had more than 40,000 people employed in the project. This created the remote site of Los Alamos in Mexico for 6,000 people to live and work on this task. -
US creation of Atom bombs and the Trinity Test
The US scientists in Los Alamos created the first atomic bombs, Little Boy and Fat Boy. This also led to a test called the ‘Trinity Test’, where a test bomb was dropped in the New Mexico desert. This test was successful, therefore leading the world into the nuclear age -
Enola Gay
The Enola Gay was the war aircraft carrying the atomic bomb which was to drop the bomb on Hiroshima -
Hiroshima atomic bomb
The Enola Gay dropped the bomb on Hiroshima at 8:15am Japanese time. This killed approximately 80,000 people and there was mass destruction -
Nagasaki atomic bomb
On August 9th, the Fat Man bomb was dropped on Nagasaki, due to the hills surrounding, there was a level of protection within the area, but still 45,000 people were killed almost instantly. -
Japanese Surrender
The Japanese finally committed to surrendering unconditionally because of the devastation of the bombs