Congressional Digest

Excerpt

The atomic age dawned on July 16, 1945, in the desert of New Mexico,
when the United States conducted the first nuclear test. The explosion
was the result of the Manhattan Project, a top secret program that
began in 1942 and grew out of fears that Hitler’s Germany might be
developing nuclear weapons. Just three weeks later, on August 6, the
United States dropped an atomic bomb on the Japanese city of Hiroshima.
On August 9, the United States detonated a second, larger atomic bomb
on the city of Nagasaki. As a result, the Japanese surrendered to the
allies on August 14, ending World War II.
In January 1946, the Ge…