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The Neolithic Revolution Begins (10,000 BC) 

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The Neolithic Revolution Begins (10,000 BC) 

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The Neolithic Revolution, also known as the Agricultural Revolution, was a wide-scale transition of many human cultures during the Neolithic period from a lifestyle of hunting and gathering to one of agriculture and settlement.

SOURCE: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Neolithic_Revolution

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Invention of the first Wheel (4000 BCE) 

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Invention of the first Wheel (4000 BCE) 

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A wheel is a rotating component that is intended to turn on an axle bearing. The wheel can be used for many different purposes such as transportation or performing labor in machines. It's not known who invented the wheel, but it is believed that Mesopotamian cultures invented the wheel around the 4th millennium BCE.

SOURCES:

https://historycooperative.org/who-invented-the-wheel/

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wheel

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Gunpower, also commonly known as black powder to distinguish it from modern smokeless powder, is the earliest known chemical explosive. It consists of a mixture of sulfur, charcoal, and potassium nitrate.

SOURCE: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gunpowder

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A printing press is a mechanical device for applying pressure to an inked surface resting upon a print medium, thereby transferring the ink. It marked a dramatic improvement on earlier printing methods in which the cloth, paper, or other medium were brushed or rubbed repeatedly to achieve the transfer of ink and accelerated the process.

SOURCE: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Printing_press

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A printing press is a mechanical device for applying pressure to an inked surface resting upon a print medium (such as paper or cloth), thereby transferring the ink. It marked a dramatic improvement on earlier printing methods in which the cloth, paper, or other medium was brushed or rubbed repeatedly to achieve the transfer of ink and accelerated the process. Typically used for texts, the invention and global spread of the printing press was one of the most influential events in the second millennium.

In Germany, around 1440, the goldsmith Johannes Gutenberg invented the movable-type printing press, which started the Printing Revolution. Modelled on the design of existing screw presses, a single Renaissance movable-type printing press could produce up to 3,600 pages per workday, compared to forty by hand-printing and a few by hand-copying. Gutenberg's newly devised hand mould made possible the precise and rapid creation of metal movable type in large quantities. His two inventions, the hand mould and the movable-type printing press, together drastically reduced the cost of printing books and other documents in Europe, particularly for shorter print runs.

A finding in 2015 brought evidence of quires as claimed by extensive research, printed in 1444-1446 possibly assigned to Procopius Waldvogel.

From Mainz, the movable-type printing press spread within several decades to over two hundred cities in a dozen European countries. By 1500, printing presses in operation throughout Western Europe had already produced more than twenty million volumes. In the 16th century, with presses spreading further afield, their output rose tenfold to an estimated 150 to 200 million copies. By the mid-17th century, the first printing presses arrived in colonial America in response to the increasing demand for Bibles and other religious literature. The operation of a press became synonymous with the enterprise of printing and lent its name to a new medium of expression and communication, " the press".

The arrival of mechanical movable type printing in Europe in the Renaissance introduced the era of mass communication, which permanently altered the structure of society. The relatively unrestricted circulation of information and (revolutionary) ideas transcended borders, captured the masses in the Reformation, and threatened the power of political and religious authorities. The sharp increase in literacy broke the monopoly of the literate elite on education and learning and bolstered the emerging middle class. Across Europe, the increasing cultural self-awareness of its peoples led to the rise of proto- nationalism and accelerated the development of European vernaculars, to the detriment of Latin's status as lingua franca. In the 19th century, the replacement of the hand-operated Gutenberg-style press by steam-powered rotary presses allowed printing on an industrial scale.

Economic conditions and intellectual climate

Medieval university class (1350s)

The rapid economic and socio-cultural development of late medieval society in Europe created favorable intellectual and technological conditions for Gutenberg's improved version of the printing press: the entrepreneurial spirit of emerging capitalism increasingly made its impact on medieval modes of production, fostering economic thinking and improving the efficiency of traditional work processes. The sharp rise of medieval learning and literacy amongst the middle class led to an increased demand for books which the time-consuming hand-copying method fell far short of accommodating.

Technological factors

Technologies preceding the press that led to the press's invention included: manufacturing of paper, development of ink, woodblock printing, and invention of eyeglasses. At the same time, a number of medieval products and technological processes had reached a level of maturity which allowed their potential use for printing purposes. Gutenberg took up these far-flung strands, combined them into one complete and functioning system, and perfected the printing process through all its stages by adding a number of inventions and innovations of his own:

Early modern wine press. Such screw presses were applied in Europe to a wide range of uses and provided Gutenberg with the model for his printing press.

The screw press which allowed direct pressure to be applied on a flat plane was already of great antiquity in Gutenberg's time and was used for a wide range of tasks. Introduced in the 1st century AD by the Romans, it was commonly employed in agricultural production for pressing wine grapes and olives (for olive oil), both of which formed an integral part of the Mediterranean and medieval diet. The device was also used from very early on in urban contexts as a cloth press for printing patterns. Gutenberg may have also been inspired by the paper presses which had spread through the German lands since the late 14th century and which worked on the same mechanical principles.

During the Islamic Golden Age, Arab Muslims were printing texts, including passages from the Qur'an, embracing the Chinese craft of paper making, developed it and adopted it widely in the Muslim world, which led to a major increase in the production of manuscript texts. In Egypt during the Fatimid era, the printing technique was adopted reproducing texts on paper strips by hand and supplying them in various copies to meet the demand.

Gutenberg adopted the basic design, thereby mechanizing the printing process. Printing, however, put a demand on the machine quite different from pressing. Gutenberg adapted the construction so that the pressing power exerted by the platen on the paper was now applied both evenly and with the required sudden elasticity. To speed up the printing process, he introduced a movable undertable with a plane surface on which the sheets could be swiftly changed.

Movable type sorted in a letter case and loaded in a composing stick on top

The concept of movable type existed prior to 15th century Europe; sporadic evidence that the typographical principle, the idea of creating a text by reusing individual characters, was known and had been cropping up since the 12th century and possibly before (the oldest known application dating back as far as the Phaistos disc). The known examples range from movable type printing in China during the Song dynasty; in Korea during the Goryeo Dynasty, where metal movable-type printing technology was developed in 1234; to Germany ( Prüfening inscription) and England ( letter tiles) and Italy ( Altarpiece of Pellegrino II). However, the various techniques employed (imprinting, punching and assembling individual letters) did not have the refinement and efficiency needed to become widely accepted. Tsuen-Hsuin and Needham, and Briggs and Burke suggest that the movable-type printing in China and Korea was rarely employed.

Gutenberg greatly improved the process by treating typesetting and printing as two separate work steps. A goldsmith by profession, he created his type pieces from a lead-based alloy which suited printing purposes so well that it is still used today. The mass production of metal letters was achieved by his key invention of a special hand mould, the matrix. The Latin alphabet proved to be an enormous advantage in the process because, in contrast to logographic writing systems, it allowed the type-setter to represent any text with a theoretical minimum of only around two dozen different letters.

Another factor conducive to printing arose from the book existing in the format of the codex, which had originated in the Roman period. Considered the most important advance in the history of the book prior to printing itself, the codex had completely replaced the ancient scroll at the onset of the Middle Ages (AD500). The codex holds considerable practical advantages over the scroll format: it is more convenient to read (by turning pages), more compact, and less costly, and both recto and verso sides could be used for writing or printing, unlike the scroll.

A paper codex of the acclaimed 42-line Bible, Gutenberg's major work

A fourth development was the early success of medieval papermakers at mechanizing paper manufacture. The introduction of water-powered paper mills, the first certain evidence of which dates to 1282, allowed for a massive expansion of production and replaced the laborious handcraft characteristic of both Chinese and Muslim papermaking. Papermaking centres began to multiply in the late 13th century in Italy, reducing the price of paper to one-sixth of parchment and then falling further; papermaking centers reached Germany a century later.

Despite this it appears that the final breakthrough of paper depended just as much on the rapid spread of movable-type printing. Codices of parchment, which in terms of quality is superior to any other writing material, still had a substantial share in Gutenberg's edition of the 42-line Bible. After much experimentation, Gutenberg managed to overcome the difficulties which traditional water-based inks caused by soaking the paper, and found the formula for an oil-based ink suitable for high-quality printing with metal type.

Function and approach

Printing press, engraving by W Lowry after John Farey Jr., 1819

This woodcut from 1568 shows the left printer removing a page from the press while the one at right inks the text-blocks. Such a duo could reach 14,000 hand movements per working day, printing ca. 3,600 pages in the process.[3]

A printing press, in its classical form, is a standing mechanism, ranging from 5 to 7 feet (1.5 to 2.1 m) long, 3 feet (0.91 m) wide, and 7 feet (2.1 m) tall. The small individual metal letters known as type would be set up by a compositor into the desired lines of text. Several lines of text would be arranged at once and were placed in a wooden frame known as a galley. Once the correct number of pages were composed, the galleys would be laid face up in a frame, also known as a forme, which itself is placed onto a flat stone, 'bed,' or 'coffin.' The text is inked using two balls, pads mounted on handles. The balls were made of dog skin leather, because it has no pores, and stuffed with sheep's wool and were inked. This ink was then applied to the text evenly. One damp piece of paper was then taken from a heap of paper and placed on the tympan. The paper was damp as this lets the type 'bite' into the paper better. Small pins hold the paper in place. The paper is now held between a frisket and tympan (two frames covered with paper or parchment).

These are folded down, so that the paper lies on the surface of the inked type. The bed is rolled under the platen, using a windlass mechanism. A small rotating handle called the 'rounce' is used to do this, and the impression is made with a screw that transmits pressure through the platen. To turn the screw the long handle attached to it is turned. This is known as the bar or 'Devil's Tail.' In a well-set-up press, the springiness of the paper, frisket, and tympan caused the bar to spring back and raise the platen, the windlass turned again to move the bed back to its original position, the tympan and frisket raised and opened, and the printed sheet removed. Such presses were always worked by hand. After around 1800, iron presses were developed, some of which could be operated by steam power.

The function of the printing press was described by William Skeen in 1872:

this sketch represents a press in its completed form, with tympans attached to the end of the carriage, and with the frisket above the tympans. The tympans, inner and outer, are thin iron frames, one fitting into the other, on each of which is stretched a skin of parchment or a breadth of fine cloth. A woollen blanket or two with a few sheets of paper are placed between these, the whole thus forming a thin elastic pad, on which the sheet to be printed is laid. The frisket is a slender frame-work, covered with coarse paper, on which an impression is first taken; the whole of the printed part is then cut out, leaving apertures exactly corresponding with the pages of type on the carriage of the press. The frisket when folded on to the tympans, and both turned down over the forme of types and run in under the platten, preserves the sheet from contact with any thing but the inked surface of the types, when the pull, which brings down the screw and forces the platten to produce the impression, is made by the pressman who works the lever,-to whom is facetiously given the title of "the practitioner at the bar.".

Gutenberg's press

Johannes Gutenberg, 1904 reconstruction

Johannes Gutenberg's work on the printing press began in approximately 1436 when he partnered with Andreas Dritzehn-a man who had previously instructed in gem-cutting-and Andreas Heilmann, owner of a paper mill. However, it was not until a 1439 lawsuit against Gutenberg that an official record existed; witnesses' testimony discussed Gutenberg's types, an inventory of metals (including lead), and his type molds.

Having previously worked as a professional goldsmith, Gutenberg made skillful use of the knowledge of metals he had learned as a craftsman. He was the first to make type from an alloy of lead, tin, and antimony, which was critical for producing durable type that produced high-quality printed books and proved to be much better suited for printing than all other known materials. To create these lead types, Gutenberg used what is considered one of his most ingenious inventions, a special matrix enabling the quick and precise molding of new type blocks from a uniform template. His type case is estimated to have contained around 290 separate letter boxes, most of which were required for special characters, ligatures, punctuation marks, and so forth.

Gutenberg is also credited with the introduction of an oil-based ink which was more durable than the previously used water-based inks. As printing material he used both paper and vellum (high-quality parchment). In the Gutenberg Bible, Gutenberg made a trial of colour printing for a few of the page headings, present only in some copies. A later work, the Mainz Psalter of 1453, presumably designed by Gutenberg but published under the imprint of his successors Johann Fust and Peter Schöffer, had elaborate red and blue printed initials.

The Printing Revolution

The Printing Revolution occurred when the spread of the printing press facilitated the wide circulation of information and ideas, acting as an "agent of change" through the societies that it reached. Demand for bibles and other religious literature was one of the main drivers of the very rapid initial expansion of printing. Much later, printed literature played a major role in rallying support, and opposition, during the lead-up to the English Civil War, and later still the American and French Revolutions through newspapers, pamphlets and bulletins. The advent of the printing press brought with it issues involving censorship and freedom of the press.

Mass production and spread of printed books

Spread of printing in the 15th century from Mainz, Germany

European book output rose from a few million to around one billion copies within a span of less than four centuries.[47]

The invention of mechanical movable type printing led to a huge increase of printing activities across Europe within only a few decades. From a single print shop in Mainz, Germany, printing had spread to no less than around 270 cities in Central, Western and Eastern Europe by the end of the 15th century. As early as 1480, there were printers active in 110 different places in Germany, Italy, France, Spain, the Netherlands, Belgium, Switzerland, England, Bohemia and Poland. From that time on, it is assumed that "the printed book was in universal use in Europe".

In Italy, a center of early printing, print shops had been established in 77 cities and towns by 1500. At the end of the following century, 151 locations in Italy had seen at one time printing activities, with a total of nearly three thousand printers known to be active. Despite this proliferation, printing centres soon emerged; thus, one third of the Italian printers published in Venice.

By 1500, the printing presses in operation throughout Western Europe had already produced more than twenty million copies. In the following century, their output rose tenfold to an estimated 150 to 200 million copies.

European printing presses of around 1600 were capable of producing between 1,500 and 3,600 impressions per workday. By comparison, Far Eastern printing, where the back of the paper was manually rubbed to the page, did not exceed an output of forty pages per day.

Of Erasmus's work, at least 750,000 copies were sold during his lifetime alone (1469-1536). In the early days of the Reformation, the revolutionary potential of bulk printing took princes and papacy alike by surprise. In the period from 1518 to 1524, the publication of books in Germany alone skyrocketed sevenfold; between 1518 and 1520, Luther's tracts were distributed in 300,000 printed copies.

The rapidity of typographical text production, as well as the sharp fall in unit costs, led to the issuing of the first newspapers (see ) which opened up an entirely new field for conveying up-to-date information to the public.

Incunable are surviving pre-16th century print works which are collected by many of the libraries in Europe and North America.

Circulation of information and ideas

"Modern Book Printing" sculpture, commemorating Gutenberg's invention on the occasion of the 2006 World Cup in Germany

The printing press was also a factor in the establishment of a community of scientists who could easily communicate their discoveries through the establishment of widely disseminated scholarly journals, helping to bring on the scientific revolution. Because of the printing press, authorship became more meaningful and profitable. It was suddenly important who had said or written what, and what the precise formulation and time of composition was. This allowed the exact citing of references, producing the rule, "One Author, one work (title), one piece of information" (Giesecke, 1989; 325). Before, the author was less important, since a copy of Aristotle made in Paris would not be exactly identical to one made in Bologna. For many works prior to the printing press, the name of the author has been entirely lost.

Because the printing process ensured that the same information fell on the same pages, page numbering, tables of contents, and indices became common, though they previously had not been unknown. The process of reading also changed, gradually moving over several centuries from oral readings to silent, private reading. Over the next 200 years, the wider availability of printed materials led to a dramatic rise in the adult literacy rate throughout Europe.

The printing press was an important step towards the democratization of knowledge. Within 50 or 60 years of the invention of the printing press, the entire classical canon had been reprinted and widely promulgated throughout Europe (Eisenstein, 1969; 52). More people had access to knowledge both new and old, more people could discuss these works. Book production became more commercialised, and the first copyright laws were passed. On the other hand, the printing press was criticized for allowing the dissemination of information that may have been incorrect.

A second outgrowth of this popularization of knowledge was the decline of Latin as the language of most published works, to be replaced by the vernacular language of each area, increasing the variety of published works. The printed word also helped to unify and standardize the spelling and syntax of these vernaculars, in effect 'decreasing' their variability. This rise in importance of national languages as opposed to pan-European Latin is cited as one of the causes of the rise of nationalism in Europe.

A third consequence of popularization of printing was on the economy. The printing press was associated with higher levels of city growth. The publication of trade-related manuals and books teaching techniques like double-entry bookkeeping increased the reliability of trade and led to the decline of merchant guilds and the rise of individual traders.

Industrial printing presses

At the dawn of the Industrial Revolution, the mechanics of the hand-operated Gutenberg-style press were still essentially unchanged, although new materials in its construction, amongst other innovations, had gradually improved its printing efficiency. By 1800, Lord Stanhope had built a press completely from cast iron which reduced the force required by 90%, while doubling the size of the printed area. With a capacity of 480 pages per hour, the Stanhope press doubled the output of the old style press. Nonetheless, the limitations inherent to the traditional method of printing became obvious.

Koenig's 1814 steam-powered printing press

Two ideas altered the design of the printing press radically: First, the use of steam power for running the machinery, and second the replacement of the printing flatbed with the rotary motion of cylinders. Both elements were for the first time successfully implemented by the German printer Friedrich Koenig in a series of press designs devised between 1802 and 1818. Having moved to London in 1804, Koenig soon met Thomas Bensley and secured financial support for his project in 1807. Patented in 1810, Koenig had designed a steam press "much like a hand press connected to a steam engine." The first production trial of this model occurred in April 1811. He produced his machine with assistance from German engineer Andreas Friedrich Bauer.

Koenig and Bauer sold two of their first models to in London in 1814, capable of 1,100 impressions per hour. The first edition so printed was on 28 November 1814. They went on to perfect the early model so that it could print on both sides of a sheet at once. This began the long process of making newspapers available to a mass audience (which in turn helped spread literacy), and from the 1820s changed the nature of book production, forcing a greater standardization in titles and other metadata. Their company Koenig & Bauer AG is still one of the world's largest manufacturers of printing presses today.

Rotary press

The steam-powered rotary printing press, invented in 1843 in the United States by Richard M. Hoe, ultimately allowed millions of copies of a page in a single day. Mass production of printed works flourished after the transition to rolled paper, as continuous feed allowed the presses to run at a much faster pace. Hoe's original design operated at up to 2,000 revolutions per hour where each revolution deposited 4 page images, giving the press a throughput of 8,000 pages per hour. By 1891, The New York World and Philadelphia Item were operating presses producing either 90,000 4-page sheets per hour or 48,000 8-page sheets.

Also, in the middle of the 19th century, there was a separate development of jobbing presses, small presses capable of printing small-format pieces such as billheads, letterheads, business cards, and envelopes. Jobbing presses were capable of quick setup (average setup time for a small job was under 15 minutes) and quick production (even on treadle-powered jobbing presses it was considered normal to get 1,000 impressions per hour [iph] with one pressman, with speeds of 1,500 iph often attained on simple envelope work). Job printing emerged as a reasonably cost-effective duplicating solution for commerce at this time.

Printing capacity

The table lists the maximum number of pages which the various press designs could print per hour.

General:

Printing presses:

Other inventions:

1. For example, in 1999, the ^ A&E Network ranked Gutenberg no. 1 on their "People of the Millennium" countdown Archived 29 August 2010 at the Wayback Machine. In 1997, Time-Life magazine picked Gutenberg's invention as the most important of the second millennium Archived 10 March 2010 at the Wayback Machine; the same did four prominent US journalists in their 1998 resume 1,000 Years, 1,000 People: Ranking The Men and Women Who Shaped The Millennium Archived 3 March 2012 at the Wayback Machine. The Johann Gutenberg Archived 14 April 2008 at the Wayback Machine entry of the Catholic Encyclopedia describes his invention as having made a practically unparalleled cultural impact in the Christian era.

2. ^ Wolf 1974, pp. 67f.:

From old price tables it can be deduced that the capacity of a printing press around 1600, assuming a fifteen-hour workday, was between 3.200 and 3.600 impressions per day.

3. Ch'on Hye-bong 1993, p. 12:

This method almost doubled the printing speed and produced more than 40 copies a day. Printing technology reached its peak at this point.

4. ^ Febvre, Lucien; Martin, Henri-Jean (1976). The Coming of the Book: The Impact of Printing 1450-1800. London: New Left Books. Quoted in: Anderson, Benedict. Comunidades Imaginadas. Reflexiones sobre el origen y la difusión del nacionalismo. Fondo de cultura económica, Mexico, 1993. ISBN 978-968-16-3867-2. pp. 58f.

5. ^ Weber 2006, p. 387:

At the same time, then, as the printing press in the physical, technological sense was invented, 'the press' in the extended sense of the word also entered the historical stage. The phenomenon of publishing was born.

6. Anderson, Benedict: ^ Comunidades Imaginadas. Reflexiones sobre el origen y la difusión del nacionalismo, Fondo de cultura económica, Mexico 1993, ISBN 978-968-16-3867-2, pp. 63-76

7. ^ Bloom, Jonathan (2001). Paper Before Print: The History and Impact of Paper in the Islamic World. New Haven: Yale University Press. pp. 8-10, 42-45. ISBN 0-300-08955-4.

8. Tsien Tsuen-Hsuin; Joseph Needham (1985). Paper and Printing. Science and Civilisation in China. Vol. 5 part 1. Cambridge University Press. pp. 158, 201.

9. Briggs, Asa and Burke, Peter (2002). A Social History of the Media: From Gutenberg to the Internet, Polity, Cambridge, pp. 15-23, 61-73.

10. Germany: ^ Brekle 1995, pp. 23-26, Brekle 1997, p. 62, Brekle 2005, p. 25; England: Lehmann-Haupt 1940, pp. 93-97, Brekle 1997, p. 62; Italy: Lipinsky 1986, pp. 75-80, Koch 1994, p. 213. Lipinsky surmises that this typographical technique was known in Constantinople from the 10th to the 12th century and that the Venetians received it from there (p. 78).

11. ^ Skeen, William (1872). Early Typography. Ceylon: Government Printer, Colombo. p. 122.

12. ^ Meggs, Philip B. A History of Graphic Design. John Wiley & Sons, Inc. 1998. (pp 58-69) ISBN 0-471-29198-6

13. Needham 1965, p. 211: ^

The outstanding difference between the two ends of the Old World was the absence of screw-presses from China, but this is only another manifestation of the fact that this basic mechanism was foreign to that culture.

Widmann 1974, p. 34, fn. 14:

In East Asia, both woodblock and movable type printing were manual reproduction techniques, that is hand printing.

Duchesne 2006, p. 83; Man 2002, pp. 112-115:

Chinese paper was suitable only for calligraphy or block-printing; there were no screw-based presses in the east, because they were not wine-drinkers, didn't have olives, and used other means to dry their paper.

Encyclopædia Britannica 2006: "Printing":

The second necessary element was the concept of the printing press itself, an idea that had never been conceived in the Far East.

14. The British Library ^ Incunabula Short Title Catalogue Archived 12 March 2011 at the Wayback Machine gives 29,777 separate editions (not copies) as of 8 January 2008, which however includes some print items from the 16th century (retrieved 11 March 2010). According to Bettina Wagner: "Das Second-Life der Wiegendrucke. Die Inkunabelsammlung der Bayerischen Staatsbibliothek", in: Griebel, Rolf; Ceynowa, Klaus (eds.): "Information, Innovation, Inspiration. 450 Jahre Bayerische Staatsbibliothek", K G Saur, München 2008, ISBN 978-3-598-11772-5, pp. 207-224 (207f.), the Incunabula Short Title Catalogue lists 28,107 editions published before 1501.

15. Peck, Josh. "The State of Publishing: Literacy Rates." ^ McSweeney's Internet Tendency. McSweeney, 5 July 2011. Web. 28 August 2014.

16. ^ SPIEGEL, Malte Herwig, DER (28 March 2007). "Google's Total Library: Putting The World's Books On The Web". Der Spiegel. Archived from the original on 28 January 2012.

17. ^ "Howard Rheingold, "Moblogs Seen as a Crystal Ball for a New Era in Online Journalism", Online Journalism Review". 9 July 2009.

18. ^ Eshgh, Amy. "Copyright Timeline: A History of Copyright in the United States | Association of Research Libraries® | ARL®". www.arl.org.

19. ^ Julia C. Crick; Alexandra Walsham (2004). The uses of script and print, 1300-1700. Cambridge University Press. p. 20. ISBN 978-0-521-81063-0.

20. ^ Nick Bilton (14 September 2010). I Live in the Future & Here's How It Works: Why Your World, Work, and Brain Are Being Creatively Disrupted. Random House Digital, Inc. p. 53. ISBN 978-0-307-59111-1.

21. ^ Jeremiah Dittmar. "Information technology and economic change: The impact of the printing press". VoxEU.

22. ^ Prateek Raj. "How the Postal System and the Printing Press Transformed European Markets". Evonomics.

23. ^ Meggs, Philip B. A History of Graphic Design. John Wiley & Sons, Inc. 1998. (pp 130-133) ISBN 0-471-29198-6

24. ^ Peck, Harry Thurston. (1895). The International Cyclopædia A Compendium of Human Knowledge, Revised with Large Additions · Volume 12. Dodd, Mead & Company. p. 168.

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(Google book)

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Eisenstein, Elizabeth L. (1980), The Printing Press as an Agent of Change, Cambridge University Press, ISBN 978-0-521-29955-8

Febvre, Lucien; Martin, Henri-Jean (1997), The Coming of the Book: The Impact of Printing 1450-1800, London: Verso, ISBN 978-1-85984-108-2

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-- (1958). Prelude To Independence The Newspaper War On Britain 1764 1776. Alfred A.Knopf.

Technology of printing

Bolza, Hans (1967), "Friedrich Koenig und die Erfindung der Druckmaschine", Technikgeschichte, 34 (1): 79-89

Brekle, Herbert E. (1995), "Eine weitere Spur einer typographischen Werkstatt beim Kloster Prüfening im 12. Jahrhundert", Gutenberg-Jahrbuch, 70: 23-26

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Hanebutt-Benz, Eva-Maria (2000), "Gutenbergs Erfindungen", Gutenberg. Aventur und Kunst: Vom Geheimunternehmen zur ersten Medienrevolution, Mainz: Stadt Mainz, pp. 158-189

Hind, Arthur M., An Introduction to a History of Woodcut, Houghton Mifflin Co. 1935 (in USA), reprinted Dover Publications, 1963 ISBN 0-486-20952-0

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Lipinsky, Angelo (1986), "La pala argentea del Patriarca Pellegrino nella Collegiata di Cividale e le sue iscrizioni con caratteri mobili", Ateneo Veneto, 24: 75-80

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Onken, Björn (2009), "Presses", in Cancik, Hubert; Schneider, Helmuth (eds.), Brill's New Pauly

Encyclopædia Britannica 2006: "Printing". Retrieved 27 November 2006

Schneider, Helmuth (2007), "Technology", in Scheidel, Walter; Morris, Ian; Saller, Richard (eds.), The Cambridge Economic History of the Greco-Roman World, Cambridge University Press, pp. 144-171, ISBN 978-0-521-78053-7

Thompson, Susan (1978), "Paper Manufacturing and Early Books", Annals of the New York Academy of Sciences, 314 (1): 167-176, Bibcode:1978NYASA.314..167T, doi:10.1111/j.1749-6632.1978.tb47791.x, S2CID 85153174

Tsien, Tsuen-Hsuin (1985), Paper and Printing, Science and Civilisation in China, Chemistry and Chemical Technology (Vol. 5, Part 1), Cambridge University Press

Weber, Johannes (2006), "Strassburg, 1605: The Origins of the Newspaper in Europe", German History, 24 (3): 387-412, doi:10.1191/0266355406gh380oa

White, K. D. (1984), Greek and Roman Technology, London: Thames and Hudson

Wolf, Hans-Jürgen (1974), Geschichte der Druckpressen (1st ed.), Frankfurt/Main: Interprint

External links

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A printing press is a mechanical device for applying pressure to an inked surface resting upon a print medium (such as paper or cloth), thereby transferring the ink. It marked a dramatic improvement on earlier printing methods in which the cloth, paper, or other medium was brushed or rubbed repeatedly to achieve the transfer of ink and accelerated the process.

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The Reformation, also known as the Protestant Reformation, was a time of major theological movement in Western Christianity in 16th century Europe that started on October 31st, 1517, that posed a religious and political challenge to the authority of the Catholic Church.

SOURCE:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Reformation

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A steam engine is a heat engine that performs mechanical work using steam as its working fluid. The steam engine uses the force produced by the steam pressure to push a piston back and form inside the cylinder. This pushing force can be transformed by a connecting rod and crank into rotational force for work.

SOURCE: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Steam_engine

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The Industrial Revolution Begins (1760-1840) 

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The Industrial Revolution Begins (1760-1840) 

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The Industrial Revolution was a transitional period of the global economy toward more widespread, efficient and stable manufacturing processes. It first started in Great Britian around 1760 before it then spread to continental Europe and the United States by around 1840.

SOURCE: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Industrial_Revolution

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A cotton gin is a machine that quickly separates cotton fibers from their seeds, enabling much greater productivity than manual cotton separation. It was created by English-American inventor Eli Whitney in 1793 and patented in 1794.

SOURCES:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cotton_gin

https://www.thoughtco.com/the-cotton-gin-in-american-history-104722

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A model of a 19th-century cotton gin on display at the Eli Whitney Museum in Hamden, Connecticut

A cotton gin-meaning "cotton engine"-is a machine that quickly and easily separates cotton fibers from their seeds, enabling much greater productivity than manual cotton separation. The fibers are then processed into various cotton goods such as calico, while any undamaged cotton is used largely for textiles like clothing. The separated seeds may be used to grow more cotton or to produce cottonseed oil.

Handheld roller gins had been used in the Indian subcontinent since at earliest AD 500 and then in other regions. The Indian worm-gear roller gin, invented sometime around the 16th century, has, according to Lakwete, remained virtually unchanged up to the present time. A modern mechanical cotton gin was created by American inventor Eli Whitney in 1793 and patented in 1794.

Whitney's gin used a combination of a wire screen and small wire hooks to pull the cotton through, while brushes continuously removed the loose cotton lint to prevent jams. It revolutionized the cotton industry in the United States, but also inadvertently led to the growth of slavery in the American South. Whitney's gin made cotton farming more profitable, so plantation owners expanded their plantations and used more slaves to pick cotton. Whitney never invented the machine to harvest cotton: it still had to be picked by hand. The invention has thus been identified as an inadvertent contributing factor to the outbreak of the American Civil War. Modern automated cotton gins use multiple powered cleaning cylinders and saws, and offer far higher productivity than their hand-powered precursors.

Cotton fibers are produced in the seed pods ("bolls") of the cotton plant where the fibers ("lint") in the bolls are tightly interwoven with seeds. To make the fibers usable, the seeds and fibers must first be separated, a task which had been previously performed manually, with production of cotton requiring hours of labor for the separation. Many simple seed-removing devices had been invented, but until the innovation of the cotton gin, most required significant operator attention and worked only on a small scale.

This section needs expansion with: details about other kinds of gins, Whitney's is not the only kind. You can help by adding to it.

The gin is made with two rotating cylinders. The first cylinder has lines of teeth around the circumference, and angled against this cylinder is a metal plate with small holes, "ginning ribs", through which the teeth can fit with minimal gaps. The teeth grip the cotton as it rotates, dragging it through these small holes. The seeds are too big to fit through the holes, and are thus removed from the rotating cotton by the metal plate, before they fall into a collecting pot. On the other side of the first cylinder, there's a second cylinder, also rotating, with brushes attached. This second cylinder wipes the cotton from the first, and deposits it into the collecting bucket.

The seed is reused for planting or is sent to an oil mill to be further processed into cottonseed oil and cottonseed meal. The lint cleaners again use saws and grid bars, this time to separate immature seeds and any remaining foreign matter from the fibers. The bale press then compresses the cotton into bales for storage and shipping. Modern gins can process up to 15 tonnes (33,000 lb) of cotton per hour.

This section needs expansion with: How the cotton gin actually separates the fibres from the seeds. The functional components of the machines and their action on the raw cotton, differences between types, how the waste is removed.. You can help by adding to it.

"The First Cotton Gin", an engraving from Harper's Magazine, 1869. This carving depicts a roller gin being used by African slaves, which preceded Eli Whitney's invention.[7]

A single-roller cotton gin came into use in India by the 5th century. An improvement invented in India was the two-roller gin, known as the "churka", "charki", or "wooden-worm-worked roller".

The earliest versions of the cotton gin consisted of a single roller made of iron or wood and a flat piece of stone or wood. The earliest evidence of the cotton gin is found in the fifth century, in the form of Buddhist paintings depicting a single-roller gin in the Ajanta Caves in western India. These early gins were difficult to use and required a great deal of skill. A narrow single roller was necessary to expel the seeds from the cotton without crushing the seeds. The design was similar to that of a mealing stone, which was used to grind grain. The early history of the cotton gin is ambiguous, because archeologists likely mistook the cotton gin's parts for other tools.

Between the 12th and 14th centuries, dual-roller gins appeared in India and China. The Indian version of the dual-roller gin was prevalent throughout the Mediterranean cotton trade by the 16th century. This mechanical device was, in some areas, driven by water power.

The worm gear roller gin, which was invented in the Indian subcontinent during the early Delhi Sultanate era of the 13th to 14th centuries, came into use in the Mughal Empire sometime around the 16th century, and is still used in the Indian subcontinent through to the present day. Another innovation, the incorporation of the crank handle in the cotton gin, first appeared sometime during the late Delhi Sultanate or the early Mughal Empire. The incorporation of the worm gear and crank handle into the roller cotton gin led to greatly expanded Indian cotton textile production during the Mughal era.

It was reported that, with an Indian cotton gin, which is half machine and half tool, one man and one woman could clean 28 pounds of cotton per day. With a modified Forbes version, one man and a boy could produce 250 pounds per day. If oxen were used to power 16 of these machines, and a few people's labor was used to feed them, they could produce as much work as 750 people did formerly.

The Indian roller cotton gin, known as the churka or charkha, was introduced to the United States in the mid-18th century, when it was adopted in the southern United States. The device was adopted for cleaning long-staple cotton, but was not suitable for the short-staple cotton that was more common in certain states such as Georgia. Several modifications were made to the Indian roller gin by Mr. Krebs in 1772 and Joseph Eve in 1788, but their uses remained limited to the long-staple variety, up until Eli Whitney's development of a short-staple cotton gin in 1793.

Eli Whitney's patent

Eli Whitney (1765-1825) applied for a patent of his cotton gin on October 28, 1793; the patent was granted on March 14, 1794, but was not validated until 1807. Whitney's patent was assigned patent number 72X. There is slight controversy over whether the idea of the modern cotton gin and its constituent elements are correctly attributed to Eli Whitney. The popular image of Whitney inventing the cotton gin is attributed to an article on the subject written in the early 1870s and later reprinted in 1910 in The Library of Southern Literature. In this article, the author claimed Catharine Littlefield Greene suggested to Whitney the use of a brush-like component instrumental in separating out the seeds and cotton. To date, Greene's alleged role in the invention of the gin has not been verified independently.

Whitney's cotton gin model was capable of cleaning 50 pounds (23 kg) of lint per day. The model consisted of a wooden cylinder covered by rows of slender wires which caught the fibers of the cotton bolls. Each row of wires then passed through the bars of a comb-like grid, pulling the cotton fibers through the grid as they did. The comb-like teeth of the grids were closely spaced, preventing the seeds, fragments of the hard dried calyx of the original cotton flower, or sticks and other debris attached to the fibers from passing through. A series of brushes on a second rotating cylinder then brushed the now-cleaned fibers loose from the wires, preventing the mechanism from jamming.

Many contemporary inventors attempted to develop a design that would process short staple cotton, and Hodgen Holmes, Robert Watkins, William Longstreet, and John Murray had all been issued patents for improvements to the cotton gin by 1796. However, the evidence indicates Whitney did invent the saw gin, for which he is famous. Although he spent many years in court attempting to enforce his patent against planters who made unauthorized copies, a change in patent law ultimately made his claim legally enforceable - too late for him to make much money from the device in the single year remaining before the patent expired.

McCarthy's gin

While Whitney's gin facilitated the cleaning of seeds from short-staple cotton, it damaged the fibers of extra-long staple cotton (Gossypium barbadense). In 1840 Fones McCarthy received a patent for a "Smooth Cylinder Cotton-gin", a roller gin. McCarthy's gin was marketed for use with both short-staple and extra-long staple cotton, but was particularly useful for processing long-staple cotton. After McCarthy's patent expired in 1861, McCarthy type gins were manufactured in Britain and sold around the world. McCarthy's gin was adopted for cleaning the Sea Island variety of extra-long staple cotton grown in Florida, Georgia and South Carolina. It cleaned cotton several times faster than the older gins, and, when powered by one horse, produced 150 to 200 pounds of lint a day. The McCarthy gin used a reciprocating knife to detach seed from the lint. Vibration caused by the reciprocating motion limited the speed at which the gin could operate. In the middle of the 20th Century gins using a rotating blade replaced ones using a reciprocating blade. These descendants of the McCarthy gin are the only gins now used for extra-long staple cotton in the United States.

For a decade and a half after the end of the Civil War in 1865, a number of innovative features became widely used for ginning in the United States. They included steam power instead of animal power, an automatic feeder to assure that the gin stand ran smoothly, a condenser to make the clean cotton coming out of the gin easier to handle, and indoor presses so that cotton no longer had to be carried across the gin yard to be baled. Then, in 1879, while he was running his father's gin in Rutersville, Texas, Robert S. Munger invented additional system ginning techniques. Robert and his wife, Mary Collett, later moved to Mexia, Texas, built a system gin, and obtained related patents.

The Munger System Ginning Outfit (or system gin) integrated all the ginning operation machinery, thus assuring the cotton would flow through the machines smoothly. Such system gins use air to move cotton from machine to machine. Munger's motivation for his inventions included improving employee working conditions in the gin. However, the selling point for most gin owners was the accompanying cost savings while producing cotton both more speedily and of higher quality.

By the 1960s, many other advances had been made in ginning machinery, but the manner in which cotton flowed through the gin machinery continued to be the Munger system.

Economic Historian William H. Phillips referred to the development of system ginning as "The Munger Revolution" in cotton ginning. He wrote,

"The Munger innovations were the culmination of what geographer Charles S. Aiken has termed the second ginning revolution, in which the privately owned plantation gins were replaced by large-scale public ginneries. This revolution, in turn, led to a major restructuring of the cotton gin industry, as the small, scattered gin factories and shops of the nineteenth century gave way to a dwindling number of large twentieth-century corporations designing and constructing entire ginning operations."

One of the few (and perhaps only) examples of a Munger gin left in existence is on display at Frogmore Plantation in Louisiana.

Cotton gin at Jarrell Plantation

Prior to the introduction of the mechanical cotton gin, cotton had required considerable labor to clean and separate the fibers from the seeds. With Eli Whitney's gin, cotton became a tremendously profitable business, creating many fortunes in the Antebellum South. Cities such as New Orleans, Louisiana; Mobile, Alabama; Charleston, South Carolina; and Galveston, Texas became major shipping ports, deriving substantial economic benefit from cotton raised throughout the South. Additionally, the greatly expanded supply of cotton created strong demand for textile machinery and improved machine designs that replaced wooden parts with metal. This led to the invention of many machine tools in the early 19th century.

The invention of the cotton gin caused massive growth in the production of cotton in the United States, concentrated mostly in the South. Cotton production expanded from 750,000 bales in 1830 to 2.85 million bales in 1850. As a result, the region became even more dependent on plantations that used black slave labor, with plantation agriculture becoming the largest sector of its economy. While it took a single laborer about ten hours to separate a single pound of fiber from the seeds, a team of two or three slaves using a cotton gin could produce around fifty pounds of cotton in just one day. The number of slaves rose in concert with the increase in cotton production, increasing from around 700,000 in 1790 to around 3.2 million in 1850. The invention of the cotton gin led to increased demands for slave labor in the American South, reversing the economic decline that had occurred in the region during the late 18th century. The cotton gin thus "transformed cotton as a crop and the American South into the globe's first agricultural powerhouse".

The invention of the cotton gin led to an increase in the use of slaves on Southern plantations. Because of that inadvertent effect on American slavery, which ensured that the South's economy developed in the direction of plantation-based agriculture (while encouraging the growth of the textile industry elsewhere, such as in the North), the invention of the cotton gin is frequently cited as one of the indirect causes of the American Civil War.

In modern cotton production, cotton arrives at industrial cotton gins either in trailers, in compressed rectangular " modules" weighing up to 10 metric tons each or in polyethylene wrapped round modules similar to a bale of hay produced during the picking process by the most recent generation of cotton pickers. Trailer cotton (i.e. cotton not compressed into modules) arriving at the gin is sucked in via a pipe, approximately 16 inches (41 cm) in diameter, that is swung over the cotton. This pipe is usually manually operated, but is increasingly automated in modern cotton plants. The need for trailers to haul the product to the gin has been drastically reduced since the introduction of modules. If the cotton is shipped in modules, the module feeder breaks the modules apart using spiked rollers and extracts the largest pieces of foreign material from the cotton. The module feeder's loose cotton is then sucked into the same starting point as the trailer cotton.

The cotton then enters a dryer, which removes excess moisture. The cylinder cleaner uses six or seven rotating, spiked cylinders to break up large clumps of cotton. Finer foreign material, such as soil and leaves, passes through rods or screens for removal. The stick machine uses centrifugal force to remove larger foreign matter, such as sticks and burrs, while the cotton is held by rapidly rotating saw cylinders.

The gin stand uses the teeth of rotating saws to pull the cotton through a series of "ginning ribs", which pull the fibers from the seeds which are too large to pass through the ribs. The cleaned seed is then removed from the gin via an auger conveyor system. The seed is reused for planting or is sent to an oil mill to be further processed into cottonseed oil and cottonseed meal. The lint cleaners again use saws and grid bars, this time to separate immature seeds and any remaining foreign matter from the fibers. The bale press then compresses the cotton into bales for storage and shipping. Modern gins can process up to 15 tonnes (33,000 lb) of cotton per hour.

Modern cotton gins create a substantial amount of cotton gin residue (CGR) consisting of sticks, leaves, dirt, immature bolls, and cottonseed. Research is currently under way to investigate the use of this waste in producing ethanol. Due to fluctuations in the chemical composition in processing, there is difficulty in creating a consistent ethanol process, but there is potential to further maximize the utilization of waste in the cotton production.

Notes

Bibliography

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A cotton gin-meaning "cotton engine"-is a machine that quickly and easily separates cotton fibers from their seeds, enabling much greater productivity than manual cotton separation. The fibers are then processed into various cotton goods such as calico, while any undamaged cotton is used largely for textiles like clothing.

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The French Revolution was a period of political and societal change in France that began in 1789 and ended in 1794 with the ascent of Napoleon Bonaparte. It sought to overthrow the monarchical rule in France and establish a republican government.

SOURCES: https://www.history.com/topics/european-history/french-revolution

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/French_Revolution

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The first telegraph, which was not electric but optic, was created in 1794 by the Frenchman Claude Chappe. Chappe's telegraph consisted of a series of semaphores placed in elevated locations about ten kilometers apart. A message would be sent from one semaphore to the next and so on before finally reaching its final destination.

SOURCE:

https://www.ericsson.com/en/about-us/history/communication/early-developments/the-triumph-of-the-telegraph

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The Haitian Revolution was a insurrection led by self-liberated slaves against the French colonial rule in Saint-Domingue. The revolution is the ONLY known slave uprising in all of world history that led to the founding of a state which was both free from slavery and ruled by non-whites.

SOURCE: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Haitian_Revolution

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The first man-made plastic was created by Alexander Parkes who publicly demonstrated it at the 1862 Great International Exhibition in London. The material is called Parkesine which is an organic material derived from cellulose that, once heated, could be molded and retained its shape when cooled.

SOURCE:

https://www.thoughtco.com/history-of-plastics-1992322

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The first man-made plastic was created by Alexander Parkes who publicly demonstrated it at the 1862 Great International Exhibition in London. The material, called Parkesine, was an organic material derived from cellulose that once heated could be molded and retained its shape when cooled.

Celluloid is derived from cellulose and alcoholized camphor. John Wesley Hyatt invented celluloid as a substitute for the ivory in billiard balls in 1868. He first tried using a natural substance called collodion after spilling a bottle of it and discovering that the material dried into a tough and flexible film. However, the material was not strong enough to be used as a billiard ball, not until the addition of camphor, a derivative of the laurel tree. The new celluloid could now be molded with heat and pressure into a durable shape.

Besides billiard balls, celluloid became famous as the first flexible photographic film used for still photography and motion pictures. Hyatt created celluloid in a strip format for movie film. By 1900, movie film was an exploding market for celluloid.

After cellulose nitrate, formaldehyde was the next product to advance the technology of plastic. Around 1897, efforts to manufacture white chalkboards led to casein plastics (milk protein mixed with formaldehyde) Galalith and Erinoid are two early tradename examples.

In 1899, Arthur Smith received British Patent 16,275, for "phenol-formaldehyde resins for use as an ebonite substitute in electrical insulation," the first patent for processing a formaldehyde resin. However, in 1907, Leo Hendrik Baekeland improved phenol-formaldehyde reaction techniques and invented the first fully synthetic resin to become commercially successful with the trade name Bakelite.

Here is a brief timeline of the evolution of plastics.

1839 - Natural Rubber - Method of processing invented by Charles Goodyear

1843 - Vulcanite - Invented by Thomas Hancock

1843 - Gutta-Percha - Invented by William Montgomerie

1856 - Shellac - Invented by Alfred Critchlow and Samuel Peck

1856 - Bois Durci - Invented by Francois Charles Lepage

1839 - Polystyrene or PS discovered by Eduard Simon

1862 - Parkesine - Invented by Alexander Parkes

1863 - Cellulose Nitrate or Celluloid - Invented by John Wesley Hyatt

1872 - Polyvinyl Chloride or PVC - First created by Eugen Baumann

1894 - Viscose Rayon - Invented by Charles Frederick Cross and Edward John Bevan

1951 - High-density polyethylene or HDPE tradenamed Marlex - Invented by Paul Hogan and Robert Banks

1951 - Polypropylene or PP - Invented by Paul Hogan and Robert Banks

1953 - Saran Wrap introduced by Dow Chemicals.

1954 - Styrofoam a type of foamed polystyrene foam was invented by Ray McIntire for Dow Chemicals

1964 - Polyimide

1970 - Thermoplastic Polyester this includes trademarked Dacron, Mylar, Melinex, Teijin, and Tetoron

1978 - Linear Low-Density Polyethylene

1985 - Liquid Crystal Polymers

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The first man-made plastic was created by Alexander Parkes who publicly demonstrated it at the 1862 Great International Exhibition in London. The material, called Parkesine, was an organic material derived from cellulose that once heated could be molded and retained its shape when cooled. Celluloid is derived from cellulose and alcoholized camphor.

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Internal combustion engine invented (1876) 

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Internal combustion engine invented (1876) 

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An internal combustion engine is a heat engine in which the combustion of a fuel occurs with an oxidizer in a combustion chamber that is an integral part of the working fluid flow circuit. The first modern internal combustion engine, which was called Otto engine, was designed in 1876 by the German engineer Nicolaus Otto.

SOURCE: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Internal_combustion_engine

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Invention of the Machine gun (The Maxim Gun) (1886) 

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Invention of the Machine gun (The Maxim Gun) (1886) 

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The Maxim gun is a recoil-operated machine gun invented in 1884 by Hiram Stevens Maxim. It was the first fully automatic machine gun in the world. And it was used in many wars including the most recent war of now, the Russo-Ukrainian War.

SOURCE: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Maxim_gun

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The Maxim gun was a weapon invented by American-British inventor Hiram Stevens Maxim in 1883: it was the first recoil-operated machine gun. It has been called "the weapon most associated with the British imperial conquest", and likewise was used in colonial wars by other countries between 1886-1914.

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The Green Revolution begins (Early 20th Century) 

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The Green Revolution begins (Early 20th Century) 

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The Green Revolution, also known as the Third Agricultural Revolution, was a period of technology transfer initiatives that saw greatly increased crop yields. This has increased the food production and combat hunger, especially in developing countries.

SOURCE: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Green_Revolution

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After World War II, newly implemented agricultural technologies, including pesticides and fertilizers as well as new breeds of high yield crops, greatly increased food production in certain regions of the Global South.

The Green Revolution, or the Third Agricultural Revolution, was a period of technology transfer initiatives that saw greatly increased crop yields. These changes in agriculture began in developed countries in the early 20th century and spread globally until the late 1980s. In the late 1960s, farmers began incorporating new technologies such as high-yielding varieties of cereals, particularly dwarf wheat and rice, and the widespread use of chemical fertilizers (to produce their high yields, the new seeds require far more fertilizer than traditional varieties), pesticides, and controlled irrigation.

At the same time, newer methods of cultivation, including mechanization, were adopted, often as a package of practices to replace traditional agricultural technology. This was often in conjunction with loans conditional on policy changes being made by the developing nations adopting them, such as privatizing fertilizer manufacture and distribution.

Both the Ford Foundation and the Rockefeller Foundation were heavily involved in its initial development in Mexico. A key leader was agricultural scientist Norman Borlaug, the "Father of the Green Revolution", who received the Nobel Peace Prize in 1970. He is credited with saving over a billion people from starvation. Another important scientific figure was Yuan Longping, whose work on hybrid rice varieties is credited with saving at least as many lives. Similarly, MS Swaminathan is known as the Father of Green Revolution in India. The basic approach was the development of high-yielding varieties of cereal grains, expansion of irrigation infrastructure, modernization of management techniques, distribution of hybridized seeds, synthetic fertilizers, and pesticides to farmers. As crops began to reach the maximum improvement possible through selective breeding, genetic modification technologies were developed to allow for continued efforts.

Studies show that the Green Revolution contributed to widespread eradication of poverty, averted hunger for millions, raised incomes, reduced greenhouse gas emissions, reduced land use for agriculture, and contributed to declines in infant mortality.

The term "Green Revolution" was first used by William S. Gaud, the administrator of the U.S. Agency for International Development (USAID), in a speech on 8 March 1968. He noted the spread of the new technologies as:

These and other developments in the field of agriculture contain the makings of a new revolution. It is not a violent Red Revolution like that of the Soviets, nor is it a White Revolution like that of the Shah of Iran. I call it the Green Revolution.

Mexico has been called the 'birthplace' and 'burial ground' of the Green Revolution. It began with great promise and it has been argued that "during the twentieth century two 'revolutions' transformed rural Mexico: the Mexican Revolution (1910-1920) and the Green Revolution (1940-1970)."

The genesis of the Green Revolution was a lengthy visit in 1940 by U.S. Vice President-elect Henry A. Wallace, who had served as U.S. Secretary of Agriculture during President Franklin Roosevelt's first two terms, and before government service, had founded a company, Pioneer Hi-Bred International, that had revolutionized the hybridization of seed corn to greatly increase crop yields. He became appalled at the meager corn yields in Mexico, where 80 percent of the people lived off the land, and a Mexican farmer had to work as much as 500 hours to produce a single bushel of corn, about 50 times longer than the typical Iowa farmer planting hybrid seed. Wallace persuaded the Rockefeller Foundation to fund an agricultural station in Mexico to hybridize corn and wheat for arid climates, and to lead it, he hired a young Iowa agronomist named Norman Borlaug.

The project was supported by the Mexican government under new President Manuel Ávila Camacho, and the U.S. government, the United Nations, and the Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO). For the U.S. government, its neighbor Mexico was an important experimental case in the use of technology and scientific expertise in agriculture that became the model for international agricultural development. Mexico sought to transform agricultural productivity, particularly with irrigated rather than dry-land cultivation in its northwest, to solve its problem of lack of food self-sufficiency. In the center and south of Mexico, where large-scale production faced challenges, agricultural production languished. Increased production promised food self-sufficiency in Mexico to feed its growing and urbanizing population with the increase in a number of calories consumed per Mexican. The science of hybridization was seen as a valuable way to feed the poor and would relieve some pressure of the land redistribution process. In general, the success of "Green Revolution" depended on the use of machinery for cultivation and harvest, on large-scale agricultural enterprises with access to credit (often from foreign investors), government-supported infrastructure projects, and access to low-wage agricultural workers.

Within eight years of Wallace's visit, Mexico had no need to import food, for the first time since 1910; within 20 years, corn production had tripled, and wheat production had increased five-fold. In 1943, Mexico imported half of its wheat requirements, however by 1956 it had become self-sufficient and it was exporting half a million tons of wheat by 1964. Within 30 years, Borlaug was awarded the Nobel Peace Prize for ultimately saving two billion people from starvation.

Mexico was the recipient of knowledge and technology of the Green Revolution, and it was an active participant with financial supports from the government for agriculture and Mexican agronomists. In the aftermath of the Mexican Revolution, the government had redistributed land to ejidatarios in some parts of the country which had broken the back of the hacienda system. During the presidency of Lázaro Cárdenas (1934-1940), land reform in Mexico reached its apex in the center and south of Mexico. Agricultural productivity had fallen significantly by the 1940s.

After Borlaug's agricultural station was established, in 1941, a team of U.S. scientists, Richard Bradfield (Cornell University), Paul C. Mangelsdorf (Harvard University), and Elvin Charles Stakman (under whom Borlaug had studied at the University of Minnesota) surveyed Mexican agriculture to recommend policies and practices. In 1943, the Mexican government founded the International Maize and Wheat Improvement Center (CIMMYT), which became a base for international agricultural research.

Locations of Norman Borlaug's research stations in the Yaqui Valley and Chapingo.

Agriculture in Mexico had been a sociopolitical issue, a key factor in some regions' participation in the Mexican Revolution. It was also a technical issue enabled by a cohort of trained agronomists who advised ejidatarios on how to increase productivity. In the post-World War II era, the government sought development in agriculture that bettered technological aspects of agriculture in regions not dominated by small-scale ejido cultivators. This drive for agricultural transformation brought Mexico self-sufficiency in food, and in the political sphere during the Cold War, helped stem unrest and the appeal of Communism.

The Mexican government created the Mexican Agricultural Program (MAP) to be the lead organization in raising productivity. Mexico became the showcase for extending the Green Revolution to other areas of Latin America and beyond, into Africa and Asia. New breeds of maize, beans, and wheat produced bumper crops with additional inputs (such as fertilizer and pesticides) and careful cultivation. Many Mexican farmers who had been dubious about the scientists or hostile to them (often a mutual relationship of discord) came to see the scientific approach to agriculture as worth adopting.

The requirements for the full package of inputs of new strains of seeds, fertilizer, synthetic pesticides, and water were often not within the reach of small-scale farmers. The application of pesticides could be hazardous for farmers. Their use often damaged the local ecology, contaminating waterways and endangering the health of workers and newborns.

One of the participants in the Mexican experiment, Edwin J. Wellhausen, summarized the factors leading to its initial success. These include: high yield plants without disease resistivity, adaptability, and ability to use fertilizers; improved use of soils, adequate fertilizers, and control of weeds and pests; and "a favorable ratio between the cost of fertilizers (and other investments) to the price of the produce."

In 1960 during the administration of President Carlos P. Garcia the Government of the Republic of the Philippines with the Ford Foundation and the Rockefeller Foundation established the International Rice Research Institute (IRRI). A rice crossing between Dee-Geo-woo-gen and Peta was done at IRRI in 1962. In 1966, one of the breeding lines became a new cultivar: IR8 rice. The administration of President Ferdinand Marcos made the promotion of IR8 the lynchpin of the Masagana 99 program, along with a credit program. The new variety required the use of fertilizers and pesticides but produced substantially higher yields than the traditional cultivars. Annual rice production in the Philippines increased from 3.7 to 7.7 million tons in two decades. The switch to IR8 rice made the Philippines a rice exporter for the first time in the 20th century, though imports still exceeded exports, according to data from the United Nations Food and Agriculture Organization. From 1966 to 1986, the Philippines imported around 2,679,000 metric tons and exported only 632,000 metric tons of milled rice. By 1980, however, problems with the credit scheme rendered the loans accessible only to rich landowners while leaving poor farmers in debt. The program was also noted to have become a vehicle of political patronage.

In 1961, Norman Borlaug was invited to India by the adviser to the Indian Minister of Agriculture Dr. M. S. Swaminathan. Despite bureaucratic hurdles imposed by India's grain monopolies, the Ford Foundation and Indian government collaborated to import wheat seed from the International Maize and Wheat Improvement Center (CIMMYT). The state of Punjab was selected by the Indian government to be the first site to try the new crops because of its reliable water supply, the presence of Indus plains which make it one of the most fertile plains on earth, and a history of agricultural success. India began its own Green Revolution program of plant breeding, irrigation development, and financing of agrochemicals.

India soon adopted IR8 rice. In 1968, Indian agronomist S.K. De Datta published his findings that IR8 rice yielded about 5 tons per hectare with no fertilizer, and almost 10 tons per hectare under optimal conditions. This was 10 times the yield of traditional rice. IR8 was a success throughout Asia and dubbed the "Miracle Rice". IR8 was also developed into Semi-dwarf IR36.

In the 1960s, rice yields in India were about two tons per hectare; by the mid-1990s, they had risen to 6 tons per hectare. In the 1970s, rice cost about $550 a ton; in 2001, it cost under $200 a ton. India became one of the world's most successful rice producers, and is now a major rice exporter, shipping nearly 4.5 million tons in 2006.

China's large and increasing population meant that increasing food production, principally rice, was a top priority for the Chinese government. When the People's Republic of China was established in 1949, the Chinese Communist Party made it a priority to pursue agricultural development. They sought to solve China's food security issues by focusing on traditional crop production, biological pest control, the implementation of modern technology and science, creating food reserves for the population, high-yield seed varieties, multi-cropping, controlled irrigation, and protecting food security. This began with the Agrarian Reform Law of 1950, which ended private land ownership and gave land back to the peasants. Unlike with Mexico, the Philippines, India, or Brazil, the beginning of China's unique Green Revolution were unrelated to the American "Green Revolution." Rather, it was characterized by the government's sponsorship of agricultural research in concert with peasant knowledge and feedback, earlier international research, nature-based pest control and many other non-industrial agricultural practices, in order to feed the rapidly growing population.

Prominent in the development of productive hybrid rice was Yuan Longping, whose research hybridized wild strains of rice with existing strains. He has been dubbed "the father of hybrid rice", and was considered a national hero in China. Chinese rice production met the nation's food security needs, and today they are a leading exporter of rice. In recent years, however, extensive use of ground water for irrigation has drawn down aquifers and extensive use of fertilizers has increased greenhouse gas emissions. China has not expanded the area of cultivable land, China's unique high yields per hectare gave China the food security it sought. In 1979, there were 490 million Chinese people living in poverty. In 2014, there were only 82 million. Half of China's population had once been hungry and in poverty, but by 2014, only 6% remained so.

Brazil's agricultural revolution

Brazil's vast inland cerrado region was regarded as unfit for farming before the 1960s because the soil was too acidic and poor in nutrients, according to Norman Borlaug. However, from the 1960s, vast quantities of lime (pulverized chalk or limestone) were poured on the soil to reduce acidity. The effort went on for decades; by the late 1990s, between 14 million and 16 million tons of lime were being spread on Brazilian fields each year. The quantity rose to 25 million tons in 2003 and 2004, equaling around five tons of lime per hectare. As a result, Brazil has become the world's second biggest soybean exporter. Soybeans are also widely used in animal feed, and the large volume of soy produced in Brazil has contributed to Brazil's rise to become the biggest exporter of beef and poultry in the world. Several parallels can also be found in Argentina's boom in soybean production as well.

There have been numerous attempts to introduce the successful concepts from the Mexican and Indian projects into Africa. These programs have generally been less successful. Reasons cited include widespread corruption, insecurity, a lack of infrastructure, and a general lack of will on the part of the governments. Yet environmental factors, such as the availability of water for irrigation, the high diversity in slope and soil types in one given area are also reasons why the Green Revolution is not so successful in Africa.

A recent program in western Africa is attempting to introduce a new high yielding 'family' of rice varieties known as " New Rice for Africa" (NERICA). NERICA varieties yield about 30% more rice under normal conditions and can double yields with small amounts of fertilizer and very basic irrigation. However, the program has been beset by problems getting the rice into the hands of farmers, and to date the only success has been in Guinea, where it currently accounts for 16% of rice cultivation.

After a famine in 2001 and years of chronic hunger and poverty, in 2005 the small African country of Malawi launched the "Agricultural Input Subsidy Program" by which vouchers are given to smallholder farmers to buy subsidized nitrogen fertilizer and corn seeds. Within its first year, the program was reported to have had extreme success, producing the largest corn harvest of the country's history, enough to feed the country with tons left over. The program has advanced yearly ever since. Various sources claim that the program has been an unusual success, hailing it as a "miracle". Malawi experienced a 40% drop in corn production in 2015 and 2016.

A 2021, a randomized control trial on temporary subsidies for corn farmers in Mozambique found that adoption of Green Revolution technology led to increased yields in both the short- and long-term.

In 1970, the year that Borlaug won the Nobel Peace Prize, foundation officials proposed a worldwide network of agricultural research centers under a permanent secretariat. This was further supported and developed by the World Bank; on 19 May 1971, the Consultative Group on International Agricultural Research (CGIAR) was established, co-sponsored by the FAO, IFAD, and UNDP. CGIAR has added many research centers throughout the world. CGIAR has responded, at least in part, to criticisms of Green Revolution methodologies. This began in the 1980s, and mainly was a result of pressure from donor organizations. Methods like agroecosystem analysis and farming system research have been adopted to gain a more holistic view of agriculture.

According to a 2012 review in Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the existing academic literature, the Green Revolution "contributed to widespread poverty reduction, averted hunger for millions of people, and avoided the conversion of thousands of hectares of land into agricultural cultivation."

The Green Revolution spread technologies that already existed but had not been widely implemented outside industrialized nations. Two kinds of technologies were used in the Green Revolution, on the issues of cultivation and breeding. The technologies in cultivation are targeted at providing excellent growing conditions, which include modern irrigation projects, pesticides, and synthetic nitrogen fertilizer. The breeding technologies aimed at improving crop varieties developed through science-based methods including hybrids, combining modern genetics with plant-breeding trait selections.

The novel technological development of the Green Revolution was the production of novel wheat cultivars. Agronomists bred high-yielding varieties of corn, wheat, and rice. HYVs have higher nitrogen-absorbing potential than other varieties. Since cereals that absorbed extra nitrogen would typically lodge, or fall over before harvest, semi-dwarfing genes were bred into their genomes. A Japanese dwarf wheat cultivar Norin 10 developed by Japanese agronomist Gonjiro Inazuka, which was sent to Orville Vogel at Washington State University by Cecil Salmon, was instrumental in developing Green Revolution wheat cultivars. In the 1960s, with a food crisis in Asia, the spread of high-yielding variety rice greatly increased.

Dr. Norman Borlaug, the "Father of the Green Revolution", bred rust-resistant cultivars which have strong and firm stems, preventing them from falling over under extreme weather at high levels of fertilization. CIMMYT (Centro Internacional de Mejoramiento de Maiz y Trigo - International Center for Maize and Wheat Improvements) conducted these breeding programs and helped spread high-yielding varieties in Mexico and countries in Asia like India and Pakistan. These programs led to the doubling of harvests in these countries.

Plant scientists figured out several parameters related to the high yield and identified the related genes which control the plant height and tiller number. With advances in molecular genetics, the mutant genes responsible for Arabidopsis thaliana genes (GA 20-oxidase, ga1, ga1-3), wheat reduced-height genes ( Rht) and a rice semidwarf gene ( sd1) were cloned. These were identified as gibberellin biosynthesis genes or cellular signaling component genes. Stem growth in the mutant background is significantly reduced leading to the dwarf phenotype. Photosynthetic investment in the stem is reduced dramatically as the shorter plants are inherently more stable mechanically. Assimilates become redirected to grain production, amplifying in particular the effect of chemical fertilizers on commercial yield.

High-yielding varieties significantly outperform traditional varieties in the presence of adequate irrigation, pesticides, and fertilizers. In the absence of these inputs, traditional varieties may outperform high-yielding varieties. Therefore, several authors have challenged the apparent superiority of high-yielding varieties not only compared to the traditional varieties alone, but by contrasting the monocultural system associated with high-yielding varieties with the polycultural system associated with traditional ones.

Wheat yields in least developed countries since 1961, in kilograms per hectare.

By one 2021 estimate, the Green Revolution increased yields by 44% between 1965 and 2010. Cereal production more than doubled in developing nations between the years 1961-1985. Yields of rice, corn, and wheat increased steadily during that period. The production increases can be attributed equal to irrigation, fertilizer, and seed development, at least in the case of Asian rice.

While agricultural output increased as a result of the Green Revolution, the energy input to produce a crop has increased faster, so that the ratio of crops produced to energy input has decreased over time. Green Revolution techniques also heavily rely on agricultural machinery and chemical fertilizers, pesticides, herbicides, and defoliants; which, as of 2014, are derived from crude oil, making agriculture increasingly reliant on crude oil extraction.

World population 1950-2010

The energy for the Green Revolution was provided by fossil fuels in the form of fertilizers (natural gas), pesticides (oil), and hydrocarbon fueled irrigation. The development of synthetic nitrogen fertilizer has significantly supported global population growth - it has been estimated that almost half the people on the Earth are currently fed as a result of synthetic nitrogen fertilizer use. According to ICIS Fertilizers managing editor Julia Meehan, "People don't realise that 50% of the world's food relies on fertilisers."

The world population has grown by about five billion since the beginning of the Green Revolution. India saw annual wheat production rise from 10 million tons in the 1960s to 73 million in 2006. The average person in the developing world consumes roughly 25% more calories per day now than before the Green Revolution. Between 1950 and 1984, as the Green Revolution transformed agriculture around the globe, world grain production increased by 160%.

The production increases fostered by the Green Revolution are often credited with having helped to avoid widespread famine, and for feeding billions of people.

World population supported with and without synthetic nitrogen fertilizers.[92]

Some criticisms generally involve some variation of the Malthusian principle of population. Such concerns often revolve around the idea that the Green Revolution is unsustainable, and argue that humanity is now in a state of overpopulation or overshoot with regards to the sustainable carrying capacity and ecological demands on the Earth. A 2021 study found, contrary to the expectations of the Malthusian hypothesis, that the Green Revolution led to reduced population growth, rather than an increase in population growth.

Although many people die each year as a direct or indirect result of hunger and poor nutrition, Malthus's more extreme predictions have failed to materialize. In 1798 Thomas Malthus made his prediction of impending famine. The world's population had doubled by 1923 and doubled again by 1973 without fulfilling Malthus's prediction. Malthusian Paul R. Ehrlich, in his 1968 book The Population Bomb, said that "India couldn't possibly feed two hundred million more people by 1980" and "Hundreds of millions of people will starve to death in spite of any crash programs." Ehrlich's warnings failed to materialize when India became self-sustaining in cereal production in 1974 (six years later) as a result of the introduction of Norman Borlaug's dwarf wheat varieties.

However, Borlaug was well aware of the implications of population growth. In his Nobel lecture he repeatedly presented improvements in food production within a sober understanding of the context of population. "The green revolution has won a temporary success in man's war against hunger and deprivation; it has given man a breathing space. If fully implemented, the revolution can provide sufficient food for sustenance during the next three decades. But the frightening power of human reproduction must also be curbed; otherwise the success of the green revolution will be ephemeral only. Most people still fail to comprehend the magnitude and menace of the "Population Monster"...Since man is potentially a rational being, however, I am confident that within the next two decades he will recognize the self-destructive course he steers along the road of irresponsible population growth..."

M. King Hubbert's prediction of world petroleum production rates (1968 peak of USA, 2005 World conventional oil peak, 2018 all liquides including corn to oil peak). Modern agriculture is largely reliant on petroleum energy.[95]

To some modern Western sociologists and writers, increasing food production is not synonymous with increasing food security, and is only part of a larger equation. For example, Harvard professor Amartya Sen wrote that large historic famines were not caused by decreases in food supply, but by socioeconomic dynamics and a failure of public action. Economist Peter Bowbrick disputes Sen's theory, arguing that Sen relies on inconsistent arguments and contradicts available information, including sources that Sen himself cited. Bowbrick further argues that Sen's views coincide with that of the Bengal government at the time of the Bengal famine of 1943, and the policies Sen advocates failed to relieve the famine.

Some have challenged the value of the increased food production of Green Revolution agriculture. These monoculture crops are often used for export, feed for animals, or conversion into biofuel. According to Emile Frison of Bioversity International, the Green Revolution has also led to a change in dietary habits, as fewer people are affected by hunger and die from starvation, but many are affected by malnutrition such as iron or vitamin-A deficiencies. Frison further asserts that almost 60% of yearly deaths of children under age five in developing countries are related to malnutrition.

The strategies developed by the Green Revolution focused on fending off starvation and were very successful in raising overall yields of cereal grains, but did not give sufficient relevance to nutritional quality. High yield cereal crops have low quality proteins, with essential amino acid deficiencies, are high in carbohydrates, and lack balanced essential fatty acids, vitamins, minerals and other quality factors.

High-yield rice, introduced since 1964 to poverty-ridden Asian countries, such as the Philippines, was found to have inferior flavor and be more glutinous and less savory than their native varieties, causing its price to be lower than the average market value.

In the Philippines the heavy use of pesticides in rice production, in the early part of the Green Revolution, poisoned and killed off fish and weedy green vegetables that traditionally coexisted in rice paddies. These were nutritious food sources for many poor Filipino farmers prior to the introduction of pesticides, further impacting the diets of locals.

A critic of the Green Revolution, American journalist Mark Dowie argues that "the primary objective of the program was geopolitical: to provide food for the populace in undeveloped countries and so bring social stability and weaken the fomenting of communist insurgency." Citing internal Foundation documents, Dowie states that the Ford Foundation had a greater concern than Rockefeller in this area.

According to a 2021 study, the Green Revolution substantially increased income. A delay in the Green Revolution by ten years would have cost 17% of GDP per capita, whereas if the Green Revolution had never happened, it could have reduced GDP per capita in the developing world by half.

Increased use of irrigation played a major role in the green revolution.

There are varying opinions about the effect of the Green Revolution on wild biodiversity. One hypothesis speculates that by increasing production per unit of land area, agriculture will not need to expand into new, uncultivated areas to feed a growing human population. However, land degradation and soil nutrients depletion have forced farmers to clear forested areas in order to maintain production. A counter-hypothesis speculates that biodiversity was sacrificed because traditional systems of agriculture that were displaced sometimes incorporated practices to preserve wild biodiversity, and because the Green Revolution expanded agricultural development into new areas where it was once unprofitable or too arid. For example, the development of wheat varieties tolerant to acid soil conditions with high aluminium content permitted the introduction of agriculture in sensitive Brazilian ecosystems such as Cerrado semi-humid tropical savanna and Amazon rainforest in the geoeconomic macroregions of Centro-Sul and Amazônia.

The world community has clearly acknowledged the negative aspects of agricultural expansion as the 1992 Rio Treaty, signed by 189 nations, has generated numerous national Biodiversity Action Plans which assign significant biodiversity loss to agriculture's expansion into new domains.

The Green Revolution has been criticized for an agricultural model which relied on a few staple and market profitable crops, and pursuing a model which limited the biodiversity of Mexico. One of the critics against these techniques and the Green Revolution as a whole was Carl O. Sauer, a geography professor at the University of California, Berkeley. According to Sauer these techniques of plant breeding would result in negative effects on the country's resources, and the culture:

A good aggressive bunch of American agronomists and plant breeders could ruin the native resources for good and all by pushing their American commercial stocks... And Mexican agriculture cannot be pointed toward standardization on a few commercial types without upsetting native economy and culture hopelessly... Unless the Americans understand that, they'd better keep out of this country entirely. That must be approached from an appreciation of native economies as being basically sound.

Studies indicate that the Green Revolution has substantially increased emissions of the greenhouse gas CO ₂. High yield agriculture has dramatic effects on the amount of carbon cycling in the atmosphere. The way in which farms are grown, in tandem with the seasonal carbon cycling of various crops, could alter the impact carbon in the atmosphere has on global warming. Wheat, rice, and soybean crops account for a significant amount of the increase in carbon in the atmosphere over the last 50 years.

Poorly regulated applications of nitrogen fertilizer that exceed the amount used by plants, such as broadcast applications of urea, result in emissions of nitrous oxide, a potent greenhouse gas, and in water pollution. As the UN Special Rapporteur on the Right to Food, Michael Fakhri summarized in 2022, "food systems emit approximately one third of the world's greenhouse gases and contribute to the alarming decline in the number of animal and plant species. Intensive industrial agriculture and export-oriented food policies have driven much of this damage. Ever since governments started adopting the Green Revolution in the 1950s, the world's food systems have been increasingly designed along industrial models, the idea being that, if people are able to purchase industrial inputs, then they can produce a large amount of food. Productivity was not measured in terms of human and environmental health, but exclusively in terms of commodity output and economic growth. This same system disrupted carbon, nitrogen and phosphorus cycles because it requires farmers to depend on fossil fuel- based machines and chemical inputs, displacing long-standing regenerative and integrated farming practices." The IPCC's synthesis of recent findings states similarly "intensive agriculture during the second half of the 20th century led to soil degradation and loss of natural resources and contributed to climate change." They further specify, "while the Green Revolution technologies substantially increased the yield of few crops and allowed countries to reduce hunger, they also resulted in inappropriate and excessive use of agrochemicals, inefficient water use, loss of beneficial biodiversity, water and soil pollution and significantly reduced crop and varietal diversity."

A 2021 study found that the Green Revolution led to a reduction in land used for agriculture.

Studies have found that the Green Revolution substantially reduced infant mortality in the developing world. A 2020 study of 37 developing countries found that the diffusion of modern crop varieties "reduced infant mortality by 2.4-5.3 percentage points (from a baseline of 18%), with stronger effects for male infants and among poor households." Another 2020 study found that high yield crop varieties reduced infant mortality in India, with particularly large effects for rural children, boys and low-caste children.

Consumption of pesticides and fertilizer agrochemicals associated with the Green Revolution may have adverse health impacts. For example, pesticides may increase the likelihood of cancer. Poor farming practices including non-compliance to usage of masks and over-usage of the chemicals compound this situation. In 1989, WHO and UNEP estimated that there were around 1 million human pesticide poisonings annually. Some 20,000 (mostly in developing countries) ended in death, as a result of poor labeling, loose safety standards etc. A 2014 study found that Indian children who were exposed to higher quantities of fertilizer agrochemicals experienced more adverse health impacts.

Although the Green Revolution has been able to improve agricultural output briefly in some regions in the world, its yield rates have been declining, while its social and environmental costs become more clearly apparent. As a result, many organizations continue to invent new ways to rectify, significantly augment or replace the techniques already used in the Green Revolution. Frequently quoted inventions are the System of Rice Intensification, marker-assisted selection, agroecology, and applying existing technologies to agricultural problems of the developing world. It is projected that global populations by 2050 will increase by one-third and as such will require a 70% increase in the production of food, which can be achieved with the right policies and investments.

The term 'Evergreen Revolution' was coined by Indian agricultural scientist M. S. Swaminathan in 1990, though he has stated that the concept dates back to as early as 1968. It aims to represent an added dimension to the original concepts and practices of the green revolution, the ecological dimension. Swaminathan has described it as "productivity in perpetuity without associated ecological harm". The concept has evolved into a combination of science, economics, and sociology. In 2002, American biologist E.O. Wilson observed that: [emphasis added]

The problem before us is how to feed billions of new mouths over the next several decades and save the rest of life at the same time, without being trapped in a Faustian bargain that threatens freedom and security. No one knows the exact solution to this dilemma. The benefit must come from an Evergreen Revolution. The aim of this new thrust is to lift food production well above the level obtained by the Green Revolution of the 1960s, using technology and regulatory policy more advanced and even safer than those now in existence.

However, despite Swaminathan's prominent role in India's adoption of Green Revolution agriculture, the 'Evergreen' concept largely reflects the failures of the original project. Although a relatively lesser known term, its substance largely reflects the consensus positions outlined in recent IPCC and other synthetic reports.

Cotter, Joseph (2003). Troubled Harvest: Agronomy and Revolution in Mexico, 1880-2002. Westport, CT: Prager [ISBN missing ]

Deb, Debal, "Restoring Rice Biodiversity", Scientific American, vol. 321, no. 4 (October 2019), pp. 54-61.

Harwood, Andrew (14 June 2013). "Development policy and history: lessons from the Green Revolution".

Hurt, R. Douglas. The Green Revolution in the Global South: Science, Politics, and Unintended Consequences. Nexus Series. Tuscaloosa: University Alabama Press, 2020. ISBN 978-0-8173-2051-5.

Jain, H.K. (2010). Green revolution: history, impact and future. Houston: Studium Press. ISBN 978-1441674487. A brief history, for general readers.

Lewis-Nang'ea, Amanda. Review of Hurt, R. Douglas, The Green Revolution in the Global South: Science, Politics, and Unintended Consequences. H-Environment, H-Net Reviews. February, 2021. http://www.h-net.org/reviews/showrev.php?id=55547

Perkins, John H. "The Rockefeller Foundation and the green revolution, 1941-1956." Agriculture and Human Values 7.3 (1990): 6-18. online

Randhawa, M.S. 1974. Green Revolution. New York: John Wiley & Sons.

Singh, Pratibha (2017). "India's Evergreen Revolution". Future of Food: Journal on Food, Agriculture and Society. 5 (2): 70-79.

Yadav, O. P.; Singh, D. V.; Dhillon, B. S.; Mohapatra, Trilochan (2019). "India's evergreen revolution in cereals". Current Science. 116 (11): 1805-1808. doi:10.18520/cs/v116/i11/1805-1808. S2CID 189922600.

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The Green Revolution, or the Third Agricultural Revolution, was a period of technology transfer initiatives that saw greatly increased crop yields. These changes in agriculture began in developed countries in the early 20th century and spread globally until the late 1980s.

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The Invention of the First Airplane (1903) 

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The Invention of the First Airplane (1903) 

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The Wright brothers, Orville Wright and Wilbur Wright, were American aviation pioneers who were credited with inventing, building, and flying the world's first successful airplane. On December 17th, 1903, they made the first controlled, sustained flight of an engine-powered aircraft with the Wright Flyer only four miles south of Kitty Hawk, North Carolina.

SOURCE:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wright_brothers

# data[].attributes.body
The Radar is an object-detection system that uses radio waves to determine the range, angle, or velocity of objects. It can be used to detect aircraft, ships, spacecraft, guided missiles, motor vehicles, weather formations, and terrain. The first radar system was invented by German engineer Christian Hulsmeyer in 1904.

SOURCE:

https://magnifymind.com/who-invented-radar/

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The Ford Model T is an automobile that was produced by the Ford Moto Company from October 1st, 1908, to May 26th, 1927. It was considered to be the first mass-affordable automobile which made car travel available to middle-class Americans. It was designed by three engineers, Joseph A. Galamb, Eugene Farkas, and Childe Harold Wills.

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The Battle of the Somme was a battle that was fought by the British Empire and the French Third Republic against the German Empire between July 1st and November 18th in 1916, aiming at breaking through German defenses on the Western Front. It later became known as one of the deadliest battles fought during World War I.

SOURCE:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Battle_of_the_Somme

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The Russian Revolution was a period of political and social change in Russia. It sought to abolish its monarchy and adopt a socialist form of government, following with two successive revolutions and a civil war.

SOURCE: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Russian_Revolution

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The Chinese Communist Revolution was a social revolution in China that began in 1927 and ended in 1949. The revolution was led by two groups, the Chinese Communist Party and the Nationalist Party, but after the civil war between them, the Chinese Communist Party ended up becoming the ruling party of China.

SOURCE: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chinese_Communist_Revolution

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From August 6th to 9th on 1945, the United States dropped two atomic bombs over the Japanese cities of Hiroshima and Nagasaki during World War II as a way of getting Japan to surrender as well as putting an end to the war.

SOURCE:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Atomic_bombings_of_Hiroshima_and_Nagasaki

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Operation Centerboard

Part of the Pacific War of World War II

Type
Nuclear bombing

Location

Date

6 and 9 August 1945

Executed by

Casualties

Hiroshima:

70,000-126,000 civilians killed

7,000-20,000 soldiers killed

12 Allied prisoners of war

Nagasaki:

60,000-80,000 killed (within 4 months)

150+ soldiers killed

8-13 Allied prisoners of war

On 6 and 9 August 1945, the United States detonated two atomic bombs over the Japanese cities of Hiroshima and Nagasaki respectively. The bombings killed between 129,000 and 226,000 people, most of whom were civilians, and remain the only use of nuclear weapons in an armed conflict. Japan surrendered to the Allies on 15 August, six days after the bombing of Nagasaki and the Soviet Union's declaration of war against Japan and invasion of Japanese-occupied Manchuria. The Japanese government signed the instrument of surrender on 2 September, effectively ending the war.

In the final year of World War II, the Allies prepared for a costly invasion of the Japanese mainland. This undertaking was preceded by a conventional bombing and firebombing campaign that devastated 64 Japanese cities. The war in the European theatre concluded when Germany surrendered on 8 May 1945, and the Allies turned their full attention to the Pacific War. By July 1945, the Allies' Manhattan Project had produced two types of atomic bombs: " Little Boy", an enriched uranium gun-type fission weapon, and " Fat Man", a plutonium implosion-type nuclear weapon. The 509th Composite Group of the United States Army Air Forces was trained and equipped with the specialized Silverplate version of the Boeing B-29 Superfortress, and deployed to Tinian in the Mariana Islands. The Allies called for the unconditional surrender of the Imperial Japanese armed forces in the Potsdam Declaration on 26 July 1945, the alternative being "prompt and utter destruction". The Japanese government ignored the ultimatum.

The consent of the United Kingdom was obtained for the bombing, as was required by the Quebec Agreement, and orders were issued on 25 July by General Thomas Handy, the acting chief of staff of the United States Army, for atomic bombs to be used against Hiroshima, Kokura, Niigata, and Nagasaki. These targets were chosen because they were large urban areas that also held militarily significant facilities. On 6 August, a Little Boy was dropped on Hiroshima. Three days later, a Fat Man was dropped on Nagasaki. Over the next two to four months, the effects of the atomic bombings killed between 90,000 and 146,000 people in Hiroshima and 60,000 and 80,000 people in Nagasaki; roughly half occurred on the first day. For months afterward, many people continued to die from the effects of burns, radiation sickness, and injuries, compounded by illness and malnutrition. Though Hiroshima had a sizable military garrison, most of the dead were civilians.

Scholars have extensively studied the effects of the bombings on the social and political character of subsequent world history and popular culture, and there is still much debate concerning the ethical and legal justification for the bombings. Supporters claim that the atomic bombings were necessary to bring an end to the war with minimal casualties; critics believe that the bombings were unnecessary for the war's end and a war crime, and highlight the moral and ethical implications of the intentional nuclear attack on civilians.

Background

Pacific War

Situation of the Pacific War on 1 August 1945.
White and green: Areas still controlled by Japan included Korea, Taiwan, Indochina, and much of China, including most of the main cities, and the Dutch East Indies
Red: Allied-held areas
Grey: Neutral Soviet Union

In 1945, the Pacific War between the Empire of Japan and the Allies entered its fourth year. Most Japanese military units fought fiercely, ensuring that the Allied victory would come at an enormous cost. The 1.25 million battle casualties incurred in total by the United States in World War II included both military personnel killed in action and wounded in action. Nearly one million of the casualties occurred during the last year of the war, from June 1944 to June 1945. In December 1944, American battle casualties hit an all-time monthly high of 88,000 as a result of the German Ardennes Offensive. Worried by the losses sustained, President Roosevelt suggested the use of atomic bombs on Germany as soon as possible, but was informed the first usable atomic weapons were still months away. America's reserves of manpower were running out. Deferments for groups such as agricultural workers were tightened, and there was consideration of drafting women. At the same time, the public was becoming war-weary, and demanding that long-serving servicemen be sent home.

In the Pacific, the Allies returned to the Philippines, recaptured Burma, and invaded Borneo. Offensives were undertaken to reduce the Japanese forces remaining in Bougainville, New Guinea and the Philippines. In April 1945, American forces landed on Okinawa, where heavy fighting continued until June. Along the way, the ratio of Japanese to American casualties dropped from five to one in the Philippines to two to one on Okinawa. Although some Japanese soldiers were taken prisoner, most fought until they were killed or committed suicide. Nearly 99 percent of the 21,000 defenders of Iwo Jima were killed. Of the 117,000 Okinawan and Japanese troops defending Okinawa in April to June 1945, 94 percent were killed; 7,401 Japanese soldiers surrendered, an unprecedentedly large number.

As the Allies advanced towards Japan, conditions became steadily worse for the Japanese people. Japan's merchant fleet declined from 5,250,000 gross tons in 1941 to 1,560,000 tons in March 1945, and 557,000 tons in August 1945. Lack of raw materials forced the Japanese war economy into a steep decline after the middle of 1944. The civilian economy, which had slowly deteriorated throughout the war, reached disastrous levels by the middle of 1945. The loss of shipping also affected the fishing fleet, and the 1945 catch was only 22 percent of that in 1941. The 1945 rice harvest was the worst since 1909, and hunger and malnutrition became widespread. U.S. industrial production was overwhelmingly superior to Japan's. By 1943, the U.S. produced almost 100,000 aircraft a year, compared to Japan's production of 70,000 for the entire war. In February 1945, Prince Fumimaro Konoe advised Emperor Hirohito that defeat was inevitable, and urged him to abdicate.

Preparations to invade Japan

Following Germany's defeat Japan remained the sole power against the Allies in World War II.

Even before the surrender of Nazi Germany on 8 May 1945, plans were underway for the largest operation of the Pacific War, Operation Downfall, the Allied invasion of Japan. The operation had two parts: set to begin in October 1945, Operation Olympic involved a series of landings by the U.S. Sixth Army intended to capture the southern third of the southernmost main Japanese island, Kyūshū. This was to be followed in March 1946 by Operation Coronet, the capture of the Kantō Plain, near Tokyo on the main Japanese island of Honshū by the U.S. First, Eighth and Tenth Armies, as well as a Commonwealth Corps made up of Australian, British and Canadian divisions. The target date was chosen to allow for Olympic to complete its objectives, for troops to be redeployed from Europe, and the Japanese winter to pass.

Japan's geography made this invasion plan obvious to the Japanese; they were able to predict the Allied invasion plans accurately and thus adjust their defensive plan, Operation Ketsugō, accordingly. The Japanese planned an all-out defense of Kyūshū, with little left in reserve. In all, there were 2.3 million Japanese Army troops prepared to defend the home islands, backed by a civilian militia of 28 million. Casualty predictions varied widely, but were extremely high. The Vice Chief of the Imperial Japanese Navy General Staff, Vice Admiral Takijirō Ōnishi, predicted up to 20 million Japanese deaths.

The Americans were alarmed by the Japanese buildup, which was accurately tracked through Ultra intelligence. On 15 June 1945, a study by the Joint War Plans Committee, who provided planning information to the Joint Chiefs of Staff, estimated that Olympic would result in 130,000 to 220,000 U.S. casualties, with U.S. dead in the range from 25,000 to 46,000. Secretary of War Henry L. Stimson commissioned his own study by Quincy Wright and William Shockley, who estimated the invading Allies would suffer between 1.7 and 4 million casualties, of whom between 400,000 and 800,000 would be dead, while Japanese fatalities would have been around 5 to 10 million.

Marshall began contemplating the use of a weapon that was "readily available and which assuredly can decrease the cost in American lives": poison gas. Quantities of phosgene, mustard gas, tear gas and cyanogen chloride were moved to Luzon from stockpiles in Australia and New Guinea in preparation for Operation Olympic, and MacArthur ensured that Chemical Warfare Service units were trained in their use. Consideration was also given to using biological weapons.

Air raids on Japan

A B-29 over Osaka on 1 June 1945

While the United States had developed plans for an air campaign against Japan prior to the Pacific War, the capture of Allied bases in the western Pacific in the first weeks of the conflict meant that this offensive did not begin until mid-1944 when the long-ranged Boeing B-29 Superfortress became ready for use in combat. Operation Matterhorn involved India-based B-29s staging through bases around Chengdu in China to make a series of raids on strategic targets in Japan. This effort failed to achieve the strategic objectives that its planners had intended, largely because of logistical problems, the bomber's mechanical difficulties, the vulnerability of Chinese staging bases, and the extreme range required to reach key Japanese cities.

Brigadier General Haywood S. Hansell determined that Guam, Tinian, and Saipan in the Mariana Islands would better serve as B-29 bases, but they were in Japanese hands. Strategies were shifted to accommodate the air war, and the islands were captured between June and August 1944. Air bases were developed, and B-29 operations commenced from the Marianas in October 1944. The XXI Bomber Command began missions against Japan on 18 November 1944. The early attempts to bomb Japan from the Marianas proved just as ineffective as the China-based B-29s had been. Hansell continued the practice of conducting so-called high-altitude precision bombing, aimed at key industries and transportation networks, even after these tactics had not produced acceptable results. These efforts proved unsuccessful due to logistical difficulties with the remote location, technical problems with the new and advanced aircraft, unfavorable weather conditions, and enemy action.

The Operation Meetinghouse firebombing of Tokyo on the night of 9-10 March 1945, was the single deadliest air raid in history,[33] with a greater area of fire damage and loss of life than either of the atomic bombings of Hiroshima or Nagasaki.[34][35]

Hansell's successor, Major General Curtis LeMay, assumed command in January 1945 and initially continued to use the same precision bombing tactics, with equally unsatisfactory results. The attacks initially targeted key industrial facilities but much of the Japanese manufacturing process was carried out in small workshops and private homes. Under pressure from United States Army Air Forces (USAAF) headquarters in Washington, LeMay changed tactics and decided that low-level incendiary raids against Japanese cities were the only way to destroy their production capabilities, shifting from precision bombing to area bombardment with incendiaries. Like most strategic bombing during World War II, the aim of the air offensive against Japan was to destroy the enemy's war industries, kill or disable civilian employees of these industries, and undermine civilian morale.

Over the next six months, the XXI Bomber Command under LeMay firebombed 64 Japanese cities. The firebombing of Tokyo, codenamed Operation Meetinghouse, on 9-10 March killed an estimated 100,000 people and destroyed 41 km ² (16 sq mi) of the city and 267,000 buildings in a single night. It was the deadliest bombing raid of the war, at a cost of 20 B-29s shot down by flak and fighters. By May, 75 percent of bombs dropped were incendiaries designed to burn down Japan's "paper cities". By mid-June, Japan's six largest cities had been devastated. The end of the fighting on Okinawa that month provided airfields even closer to the Japanese mainland, allowing the bombing campaign to be further escalated. Aircraft flying from Allied aircraft carriers and the Ryukyu Islands also regularly struck targets in Japan during 1945 in preparation for Operation Downfall. Firebombing switched to smaller cities, with populations ranging from 60,000 to 350,000. According to Yuki Tanaka, the U.S. fire-bombed over a hundred Japanese towns and cities.

The Japanese military was unable to stop the Allied attacks and the country's civil defense preparations proved inadequate. Japanese fighters and anti-aircraft guns had difficulty engaging bombers flying at high altitude. From April 1945, the Japanese interceptors also had to face American fighter escorts based on Iwo Jima and Okinawa. That month, the Imperial Japanese Army Air Service and Imperial Japanese Navy Air Service stopped attempting to intercept the air raids to preserve fighter aircraft to counter the expected invasion. By mid-1945 the Japanese only occasionally scrambled aircraft to intercept individual B-29s conducting reconnaissance sorties over the country, to conserve supplies of fuel. In July 1945, the Japanese had 137,800,000 litres (1,156,000 US bbl) of avgas stockpiled for the invasion of Japan. About 72,000,000 litres (604,000 US bbl) had been consumed in the home islands area in April, May and June 1945. While the Japanese military decided to resume attacks on Allied bombers from late June, by this time there were too few operational fighters available for this change of tactics to hinder the Allied air raids.

Atomic bomb development

The discovery of nuclear fission in 1938 made the development of an atomic bomb a theoretical possibility. Fears that a German atomic bomb project would develop atomic weapons first, especially among scientists who were refugees from Nazi Germany and other fascist countries, were expressed in the Einstein-Szilard letter to Roosevelt in 1939. This prompted preliminary research in the United States in late 1939. Progress was slow until the arrival of the British MAUD Committee report in late 1941, which indicated that only 5 to 10 kilograms of isotopically-pure uranium-235 were needed for a bomb instead of tons of natural uranium and a neutron moderator like heavy water. Consequently, the work was accelerated, first as a pilot program, and finally in the agreement by Roosevelt to turn the work over the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers to construct the production facilities necessary to produce uranium-235 and plutonium-239. This work was consolidated within the newly created Manhattan Engineer District, which became better known as the Manhattan Project, eventually under the direction of Major General Leslie R. Groves, Jr..

The work of the Manhattan Project took place at dozens of sites across the United States, and even some outside of its borders. It would ultimately cost over US$2 billion (equivalent to about $24 billion in 2021) and employ over 125,000 people simultaneously at its peak. Groves appointed J. Robert Oppenheimer to organize and head the project's Los Alamos Laboratory in New Mexico, where bomb design work was carried out. Two different types of bombs were eventually developed: a gun-type fission weapon that used uranium-235, called Little Boy, and a more complex implosion-type nuclear weapon that used plutonium-239, called Fat Man.

There was a Japanese nuclear weapon program, but it lacked the human, mineral, and financial resources of the Manhattan Project, and never made much progress towards developing an atomic bomb.

Preparations

Organization and training

The "Tinian Joint Chiefs": Captain William S. Parsons (left), Rear Admiral William R. Purnell (center), and Brigadier General Thomas F. Farrell (right)

The 509th Composite Group was constituted on 9 December 1944, and activated on 17 December 1944, at Wendover Army Air Field, Utah, commanded by Colonel Paul Tibbets. Tibbets was assigned to organize and command a combat group to develop the means of delivering an atomic weapon against targets in Germany and Japan. Because the flying squadrons of the group consisted of both bomber and transport aircraft, the group was designated as a "composite" rather than a "bombardment" unit. Due to its remoteness, Tibbets selected Wendover for his training base over Great Bend, Kansas and Mountain Home, Idaho. Each bombardier completed at least 50 practice drops of inert or conventional explosive pumpkin bombs, targeting islands around Tinian and later the Japanese home islands, until as late as August 14, 1945. Some of the missions over Japan were flown by single unescorted bombers with a single payload in order to accustom the Japanese to this pattern. They also simulated actual atomic bombing runs, including the directions of ingress and egress with respect to the wind. Tibbets himself was barred from flying most missions over Japan for fear that he might be captured and forced to reveal what he knew. On 5 April 1945, the code name Operation Centerboard was assigned. The officer responsible for its allocation in the War Department's Operations Division was not cleared to know any details of it. The first bombing was later codenamed Operation Centerboard I, and the second, Operation Centerboard II.

The 509th Composite Group had an authorized strength of 225 officers and 1,542 enlisted men, almost all of whom eventually deployed to Tinian. In addition to its authorized strength, the 509th had attached to it on Tinian 51 civilian and military personnel from Project Alberta, known as the 1st Technical Detachment. The 509th Composite Group's 393d Bombardment Squadron was equipped with 15 Silverplate B-29s. These aircraft were specially adapted to carry nuclear weapons, and were equipped with fuel-injected engines, Curtiss Electric reversible-pitch propellers, pneumatic actuators for rapid opening and closing of bomb bay doors and other improvements.

The ground support echelon of the 509th Composite Group moved by rail on 26 April 1945, to its port of embarkation at Seattle, Washington. On 6 May the support elements sailed on the SS Cape Victory for the Marianas, while group materiel was shipped on the SS Emile Berliner. The Cape Victory made brief port calls at Honolulu and Eniwetok but the passengers were not permitted to leave the dock area. An advance party of the air echelon, consisting of 29 officers and 61 enlisted men, flew by C-54 to North Field on Tinian, between 15 and 22 May. There were also two representatives from Washington, D.C., Brigadier General Thomas Farrell, the deputy commander of the Manhattan Project, and Rear Admiral William R. Purnell of the Military Policy Committee, who were on hand to decide higher policy matters on the spot. Along with Captain William S. Parsons, the commander of Project Alberta, they became known as the "Tinian Joint Chiefs".

Choice of targets

The mission runs of 6 and 9 August, with Hiroshima, Nagasaki, and Kokura (the original target for 9 August) displayed

In April 1945, Marshall asked Groves to nominate specific targets for bombing for final approval by himself and Stimson. Groves formed a Target Committee, chaired by himself, that included Farrell, Major John A. Derry, Colonel William P. Fisher, Joyce C. Stearns and David M. Dennison from the USAAF; and scientists John von Neumann, Robert R. Wilson and William Penney from the Manhattan Project. The Target Committee met in Washington on 27 April; at Los Alamos on 10 May, where it was able to talk to the scientists and technicians there; and finally in Washington on 28 May, where it was briefed by Tibbets and Commander Frederick Ashworth from Project Alberta, and the Manhattan Project's scientific advisor, Richard C. Tolman.

The Target Committee nominated five targets: Kokura (now Kitakyushu), the site of one of Japan's largest munitions plants; Hiroshima, an embarkation port and industrial center that was the site of a major military headquarters; Yokohama, an urban center for aircraft manufacture, machine tools, docks, electrical equipment and oil refineries; Niigata, a port with industrial facilities including steel and aluminum plants and an oil refinery; and Kyoto, a major industrial center. The target selection was subject to the following criteria:

The target was larger than 4.8 km (3 mi) in diameter and was an important target in a large city.

The blast wave would create effective damage.

The target was unlikely to be attacked by August 1945.

These cities were largely untouched during the nightly bombing raids, and the Army Air Forces agreed to leave them off the target list so accurate assessment of the damage caused by the atomic bombs could be made. Hiroshima was described as "an important army depot and port of embarkation in the middle of an urban industrial area. It is a good radar target and it is such a size that a large part of the city could be extensively damaged. There are adjacent hills which are likely to produce a focusing effect which would considerably increase the blast damage. Due to rivers it is not a good incendiary target."

The Target Committee stated that "It was agreed that psychological factors in the target selection were of great importance. Two aspects of this are (1) obtaining the greatest psychological effect against Japan and (2) making the initial use sufficiently spectacular for the importance of the weapon to be internationally recognized when publicity on it is released.... Kyoto has the advantage of the people being more highly intelligent and hence better able to appreciate the significance of the weapon. Hiroshima has the advantage of being such a size and with possible focussing from nearby mountains that a large fraction of the city may be destroyed. The Emperor's palace in Tokyo has a greater fame than any other target but is of least strategic value."

Edwin O. Reischauer, a Japan expert for the U.S. Army Intelligence Service, was incorrectly said to have prevented the bombing of Kyoto. In his autobiography, Reischauer specifically refuted this claim:

... the only person deserving credit for saving Kyoto from destruction is Henry L. Stimson, the Secretary of War at the time, who had known and admired Kyoto ever since his honeymoon there several decades earlier.

Extant sources show that while Stimson was personally familiar with Kyoto, this was the result of a visit decades after his marriage, not because he honeymooned there. On 30 May, Stimson asked Groves to remove Kyoto from the target list due to its historical, religious and cultural significance, but Groves pointed to its military and industrial significance. Stimson then approached President Harry S. Truman about the matter. Truman agreed with Stimson, and Kyoto was temporarily removed from the target list. Groves attempted to restore Kyoto to the target list in July, but Stimson remained adamant. On 25 July, Nagasaki was put on the target list in place of Kyoto. It was a major military port, one of Japan's largest shipbuilding and repair centers, and an important producer of naval ordnance.

Proposed demonstration

In early May 1945, the Interim Committee was created by Stimson at the urging of leaders of the Manhattan Project and with the approval of Truman to advise on matters pertaining to nuclear technology. They agreed that the atomic bomb was to be used (1) against Japan at the earliest opportunity, (2) without special warning, and (3) on a "dual target" of military installation surrounded by other buildings susceptible to damage.

During the meetings on 31 May and 1 June, scientist Ernest Lawrence had suggested giving the Japanese a non-combat demonstration. Arthur Compton later recalled that:

It was evident that everyone would suspect trickery. If a bomb were exploded in Japan with previous notice, the Japanese air power was still adequate to give serious interference. An atomic bomb was an intricate device, still in the developmental stage. Its operation would be far from routine. If during the final adjustments of the bomb the Japanese defenders should attack, a faulty move might easily result in some kind of failure. Such an end to an advertised demonstration of power would be much worse than if the attempt had not been made. It was now evident that when the time came for the bombs to be used we should have only one of them available, followed afterwards by others at all-too-long intervals. We could not afford the chance that one of them might be a dud. If the test were made on some neutral territory, it was hard to believe that Japan's determined and fanatical military men would be impressed. If such an open test were made first and failed to bring surrender, the chance would be gone to give the shock of surprise that proved so effective. On the contrary, it would make the Japanese ready to interfere with an atomic attack if they could. Though the possibility of a demonstration that would not destroy human lives was attractive, no one could suggest a way in which it could be made so convincing that it would be likely to stop the war.

The possibility of a demonstration was raised again in the Franck Report issued by physicist James Franck on 11 June and the Scientific Advisory Panel rejected his report on 16 June, saying that "we can propose no technical demonstration likely to bring an end to the war; we see no acceptable alternative to direct military use." Franck then took the report to Washington, D.C., where the Interim Committee met on 21 June to re-examine its earlier conclusions; but it reaffirmed that there was no alternative to the use of the bomb on a military target.

Like Compton, many U.S. officials and scientists argued that a demonstration would sacrifice the shock value of the atomic attack, and the Japanese could deny the atomic bomb was lethal, making the mission less likely to produce surrender. Allied prisoners of war might be moved to the demonstration site and be killed by the bomb. They also worried that the bomb might be a failure, as the Trinity test was that of a stationary device, not an air-dropped bomb. In addition, although more bombs were in production, only two would be available at the start of August, and they cost billions of dollars, so using one for a demonstration would be expensive.

Various leaflets were dropped on Japan listing cities targeted for destruction by firebombing. The other side stated that other cities may be attacked[87]

For several months, the U.S. had warned civilians of potential air raids by dropping more than 63 million leaflets across Japan. Many Japanese cities suffered terrible damage from aerial bombings; some were as much as 97 percent destroyed. LeMay thought that leaflets would increase the psychological impact of bombing, and reduce the international stigma of area-bombing cities. Even with the warnings, Japanese opposition to the war remained ineffective. In general, the Japanese regarded the leaflet messages as truthful, with many Japanese choosing to leave major cities. The leaflets caused such concern that the government ordered the arrest of anyone caught in possession of a leaflet. Leaflet texts were prepared by recent Japanese prisoners of war because they were thought to be the best choice "to appeal to their compatriots".

In preparation for dropping an atomic bomb on Hiroshima, the Oppenheimer-led Scientific Panel of the Interim Committee decided against a demonstration bomb and against a special leaflet warning. Those decisions were implemented because of the uncertainty of a successful detonation and also because of the wish to maximize shock in the leadership. No warning was given to Hiroshima that a new and much more destructive bomb was going to be dropped. Various sources gave conflicting information about when the last leaflets were dropped on Hiroshima prior to the atomic bomb. Robert Jay Lifton wrote that it was 27 July, and Theodore H. McNelly wrote that it was 30 July. The USAAF history noted that eleven cities were targeted with leaflets on 27 July, but Hiroshima was not one of them, and there were no leaflet sorties on 30 July. Leaflet sorties were undertaken on 1 and 4 August. Hiroshima may have been leafleted in late July or early August, as survivor accounts talk about a delivery of leaflets a few days before the atomic bomb was dropped. Three versions were printed of a leaflet listing 11 or 12 cities targeted for firebombing; a total of 33 cities listed. With the text of this leaflet reading in Japanese "...we cannot promise that only these cities will be among those attacked..." Hiroshima was not listed.

Consultation with Britain and Canada

In 1943, the United States and the United Kingdom signed the Quebec Agreement, which stipulated that nuclear weapons would not be used against another country without mutual consent. Stimson therefore had to obtain British permission. A meeting of the Combined Policy Committee, which included one Canadian representative, was held at the Pentagon on 4 July 1945. Field Marshal Sir Henry Maitland Wilson announced that the British government concurred with the use of nuclear weapons against Japan, which would be officially recorded as a decision of the Combined Policy Committee. As the release of information to third parties was also controlled by the Quebec Agreement, discussion then turned to what scientific details would be revealed in the press announcement of the bombing. The meeting also considered what Truman could reveal to Joseph Stalin, the leader of the Soviet Union, at the upcoming Potsdam Conference, as this also required British concurrence.

Orders for the attack were issued to General Carl Spaatz on 25 July under the signature of General Thomas T. Handy, the acting chief of staff, since Marshall was at the Potsdam Conference with Truman. It read:

1. The 509th Composite Group, 20th Air Force will deliver its first special bomb as soon as weather will permit visual bombing after about 3 August 1945 on one of the targets: Hiroshima, Kokura, Niigata and Nagasaki. To carry military and civilian scientific personnel from the War Department to observe and record the effects of the explosion of the bomb, additional aircraft will accompany the airplane carrying the bomb. The observing planes will stay several miles distant from the point of impact of the bomb.

2. Additional bombs will be delivered on the above targets as soon as made ready by the project staff. Further instructions will be issued concerning targets other than those listed above.

That day, Truman noted in his diary that:

This weapon is to be used against Japan between now and August 10th. I have told the Sec. of War, Mr. Stimson, to use it so that military objectives and soldiers and sailors are the target and not women and children. Even if the Japs are savages, ruthless, merciless and fanatic, we as the leader of the world for the common welfare cannot drop that terrible bomb on the old capital [Kyoto] or the new [Tokyo]. He and I are in accord. The target will be a purely military one.

Potsdam Declaration

The 16 July success of the Trinity Test in the New Mexico desert exceeded expectations. On 26 July, Allied leaders issued the Potsdam Declaration, which outlined the terms of surrender for Japan. The declaration was presented as an ultimatum and stated that without a surrender, the Allies would attack Japan, resulting in "the inevitable and complete destruction of the Japanese armed forces and just as inevitably the utter devastation of the Japanese homeland". The atomic bomb was not mentioned in the communiqué.

On 28 July, Japanese papers reported that the declaration had been rejected by the Japanese government. That afternoon, Prime Minister Kantarō Suzuki declared at a press conference that the Potsdam Declaration was no more than a rehash ( yakinaoshi) of the Cairo Declaration, that the government intended to ignore it (, "kill by silence"), and that Japan would fight to the end. The statement was taken by both Japanese and foreign papers as a clear rejection of the declaration. Emperor Hirohito, who was waiting for a Soviet reply to non-committal Japanese peace feelers, made no move to change the government position. Japan's willingness to surrender remained conditional on the preservation of the (Imperial institution and national polity), assumption by the Imperial Headquarters of responsibility for disarmament and demobilization, no occupation of the Japanese Home Islands, Korea or Formosa, and delegation of the punishment of war criminals to the Japanese government.

At Potsdam, Truman agreed to a request from Winston Churchill that Britain be represented when the atomic bomb was dropped. William Penney and Group Captain Leonard Cheshire were sent to Tinian, but found that LeMay would not let them accompany the mission. All they could do was send a strongly worded signal to Wilson.

The Little Boy bomb, except for the uranium payload, was ready at the beginning of May 1945. There were two uranium-235 components, a hollow cylindrical projectile and a cylindrical target insert. The projectile was completed on 15 June, and the target insert on 24 July. The projectile and eight bomb pre-assemblies (partly assembled bombs without the powder charge and fissile components) left Hunters Point Naval Shipyard, California, on 16 July aboard the cruiser USS Indianapolis, and arrived on Tinian on 26 July. The target insert followed by air on 30 July, accompanied by Commander Francis Birch from Project Alberta. Responding to concerns expressed by the 509th Composite Group about the possibility of a B-29 crashing on takeoff, Birch had modified the Little Boy design to incorporate a removable breech plug that would permit the bomb to be armed in flight.

The first plutonium core, along with its polonium- beryllium urchin initiator, was transported in the custody of Project Alberta courier Raemer Schreiber in a magnesium field carrying case designed for the purpose by Philip Morrison. Magnesium was chosen because it does not act as a neutron reflector. The core departed from Kirtland Army Air Field on a C-54 transport aircraft of the 509th Composite Group's 320th Troop Carrier Squadron on 26 July, and arrived at North Field 28 July. Three Fat Man high-explosive pre-assemblies, designated F31, F32, and F33, were picked up at Kirtland on 28 July by three B-29s, two from the 393d Bombardment Squadron plus one from the 216th Army Air Force Base Unit, and transported to North Field, arriving on 2 August.

Hiroshima during World War II

The Enola Gay dropped the "Little Boy" atomic bomb on Hiroshima. Paul Tibbets (center in photograph) can be seen with six members of the ground crew.

At the time of its bombing, Hiroshima was a city of industrial and military significance. A number of military units were located nearby, the most important of which was the headquarters of Field Marshal Shunroku Hata's Second General Army, which commanded the defense of all of southern Japan, and was located in Hiroshima Castle. Hata's command consisted of some 400,000 men, most of whom were on Kyushu where an Allied invasion was correctly anticipated. Also present in Hiroshima were the headquarters of the 59th Army, the 5th Division and the 224th Division, a recently formed mobile unit. The city was defended by five batteries of 70 mm and 80 mm (2.8 and 3.1 inch) anti-aircraft guns of the 3rd Anti-Aircraft Division, including units from the 121st and 122nd Anti-Aircraft Regiments and the 22nd and 45th Separate Anti-Aircraft Battalions. In total, an estimated 40,000 Japanese military personnel were stationed in the city.

Hiroshima was a supply and logistics base for the Japanese military. The city was a communications center, a key port for shipping, and an assembly area for troops. It supported a large war industry, manufacturing parts for planes and boats, for bombs, rifles, and handguns. The center of the city contained several reinforced concrete buildings. Outside the center, the area was congested by a dense collection of small timber workshops set among Japanese houses. A few larger industrial plants lay near the outskirts of the city. The houses were constructed of timber with tile roofs, and many of the industrial buildings were also built around timber frames. The city as a whole was highly susceptible to fire damage. It was the second largest city in Japan after Kyoto that was still undamaged by air raids, primarily because it lacked the aircraft manufacturing industry that was the XXI Bomber Command's priority target. On 3 July, the Joint Chiefs of Staff placed it off limits to bombers, along with Kokura, Niigata and Kyoto.

The population of Hiroshima had reached a peak of over 381,000 earlier in the war but prior to the atomic bombing, the population had steadily decreased because of a systematic evacuation ordered by the Japanese government. At the time of the attack, the population was approximately 340,000-350,000. Residents wondered why Hiroshima had been spared destruction by firebombing. Some speculated that the city was to be saved for U.S. occupation headquarters, others thought perhaps their relatives in Hawaii and California had petitioned the U.S. government to avoid bombing Hiroshima. More realistic city officials had ordered buildings torn down to create long, straight firebreaks. These continued to be expanded and extended up to the morning of 6 August 1945.

Bombing of Hiroshima

Strike order for the Hiroshima bombing as posted on 5 August 1945

Hiroshima was the primary target of the first atomic bombing mission on 6 August, with Kokura and Nagasaki as alternative targets. The 393d Bombardment Squadron B-29 , named after Tibbets's mother and piloted by Tibbets, took off from North Field, Tinian, about six hours' flight time from Japan. Enola Gay was accompanied by two other B-29s: The Great Artiste, commanded by Major Charles Sweeney, which carried instrumentation, and a then-nameless aircraft later called Necessary Evil, commanded by Captain George Marquardt. Necessary Evil was the photography aircraft.

After leaving Tinian, the aircraft made their way separately to Iwo Jima to rendezvous with Sweeney and Marquardt at 05:55 at 2,800 meters (9,200 ft), and set course for Japan. The aircraft arrived over the target in clear visibility at 9,470 meters (31,060 ft). Parsons, who was in command of the mission, armed the bomb in flight to minimize the risks during takeoff. He had witnessed four B-29s crash and burn at takeoff, and feared that a nuclear explosion would occur if a B-29 crashed with an armed Little Boy on board. His assistant, Second Lieutenant Morris R. Jeppson, removed the safety devices 30 minutes before reaching the target area.

The Hiroshima atom bomb cloud 2-5 minutes after detonation[132]

During the night of 5-6 August, Japanese early warning radar detected the approach of numerous American aircraft headed for the southern part of Japan. Radar detected 65 bombers headed for Saga, 102 bound for Maebashi, 261 en route to Nishinomiya, 111 headed for Ube and 66 bound for Imabari. An alert was given and radio broadcasting stopped in many cities, among them Hiroshima. The all-clear was sounded in Hiroshima at 00:05. About an hour before the bombing, the air raid alert was sounded again, as Straight Flush flew over the city. It broadcast a short message which was picked up by Enola Gay. It read: "Cloud cover less than 3/10th at all altitudes. Advice: bomb primary." The all-clear was sounded over Hiroshima again at 07:09.

At 08:09, Tibbets started his bomb run and handed control over to his bombardier, Major Thomas Ferebee. The release at 08:15 (Hiroshima time) went as planned, and the Little Boy containing about 64 kg (141 lb) of uranium-235 took 44.4 seconds to fall from the aircraft flying at about 9,400 meters (31,000 ft) to a detonation height of about 580 meters (1,900 ft) above the city. Enola Gay was 18.5 km (11.5 mi) away before it felt the shock waves from the blast.

Due to crosswind, the bomb missed the aiming point, the Aioi Bridge, by approximately 240 m (800 ft) and detonated directly over Shima Surgical Clinic. It released the equivalent energy of 16 ± 2 kilotons of TNT (66.9 ± 8.4 TJ). The weapon was considered very inefficient, with only 1.7 percent of its material fissioning. The radius of total destruction was about 1.6 kilometers (1 mi), with resulting fires across 11 km ² (4.4 sq mi).

Enola Gay stayed over the target area for two minutes and was 16 kilometers (10 mi) away when the bomb detonated. Only Tibbets, Parsons, and Ferebee knew of the nature of the weapon; the others on the bomber were only told to expect a blinding flash and given black goggles. "It was hard to believe what we saw", Tibbets told reporters, while Parsons said "the whole thing was tremendous and awe-inspiring... the men aboard with me gasped 'My God'." He and Tibbets compared the shockwave to "a close burst of ack-ack fire".

Events on the ground

People on the ground reported a pika-a brilliant flash of light-followed by a don-a loud booming sound. The experiences of survivors in the city varied depending on their location and circumstances, but a common factor in survivor accounts was a sense that a conventional weapon (sometimes cited as a magnesium bomb, which have a distinctively bright white flash) had happened to go off immediately in their vicinity, causing tremendous damage (throwing people across rooms, breaking glass, crushing buildings). Only after emerging from these ruins did the survivors tend to gradually understand that the entire city had in fact been attacked at the same instant. Survivor accounts frequently feature walking through the ruins of the city without a clear sense of where to go, and encountering the cries of people trapped within crushed structures, or people with horrific burns. As the numerous small fires created by the blast began to grow, they merged into a firestorm that moved quickly throughout the ruins, killing many who had been trapped, and causing people to jump into Hiroshima's rivers in search of sanctuary (many of whom drowned). The photographer Yoshito Matsushige took the only photographs of Hiroshima immediately after the bombing. He described in a later interview that, immediately after the bombing, "everywhere there was dust; it made a grayish darkness over everything." He took five photographs in total before he could not continue: "It was really a terrible scene. It was just like something out of hell." Survivor accounts also prominently feature cases of survivors who appeared uninjured, but who would succumb within hours or days to what would later be identified as radiation sickness.

The exact number of people killed by the blast, firestorm, and radiation effects of the bombing are unknown. Estimates have ranged from 66,000 people killed and 69,000 injured, upwards to 140,000 dead (by December 1945) in later estimations. Difficulty in coming up with a correct figure is due to the imprecise record-keeping during the war, the chaos caused by the attack, lack of agreement on how many people were in the city on the morning of the attack, and uncertainty in methodology. Estimates also vary on the number of Japanese military personnel killed. The United States Strategic Bombing Survey concluded in 1946 that there were 24,158 soldiers present in Hiroshima at the time of the attack, and that 6,789 were killed or missing as a result. Later re-calculations suggest that there were personnel in the city that were uncounted in this estimate, and suggest that as many as 20,000 Japanese military personnel were killed. U.S. surveys estimated that 12 km ² (4.7 sq mi) of the city were destroyed. Japanese officials determined that 69 percent of Hiroshima's buildings were destroyed and another 6 to 7 percent damaged.

Some of the reinforced concrete buildings in Hiroshima had been very strongly constructed because of the earthquake danger in Japan, and their framework did not collapse even though they were fairly close to the blast center. Since the bomb detonated in the air, the blast was directed more downward than sideways, which was largely responsible for the survival of the Prefectural Industrial Promotional Hall, now commonly known as the Genbaku (A-bomb) dome, which was only 150 m (490 ft) from ground zero (the hypocenter). The ruin was named Hiroshima Peace Memorial and was made a UNESCO World Heritage Site in 1996 over the objections of the United States and China, which expressed reservations on the grounds that other Asian nations were the ones who suffered the greatest loss of life and property, and a focus on Japan lacked historical perspective.

For decades this photo was misidentified as the mushroom cloud of the bomb that formed at c. 08:16.[151][152] However, due to its much greater height, the scene was identified in March 2016 as the firestorm-cloud that engulfed the city,[152] some three hours after the bombing.

The air raid warning had been cleared at 07:31, and many people were outside, going about their activities. Eizō Nomura was the closest known survivor, being in the basement of a reinforced concrete building (it remained as the after the war) only 170 meters (560 ft) from ground zero at the time of the attack. He died in 1982, aged 84. Akiko Takakura was among the closest survivors to the hypocenter of the blast. She was in the solidly-built Bank of Hiroshima only 300 meters (980 ft) from ground-zero at the time of the attack.

Over 90 percent of the doctors and 93 percent of the nurses in Hiroshima were killed or injured-most had been in the downtown area which received the greatest damage. The hospitals were destroyed or heavily damaged. Only one doctor, Terufumi Sasaki, remained on duty at the Red Cross Hospital. Nonetheless, by early afternoon the police and volunteers had established evacuation centres at hospitals, schools and tram stations, and a morgue was established in the Asano library. Survivors of the blast gathered for medical treatment, but many would die before receiving any help, leaving behind rings of corpses around hospitals.

Most elements of the Japanese Second General Army headquarters were undergoing physical training on the grounds of Hiroshima Castle, barely 820 meters (900 yd) from the hypocenter. The attack killed 3,243 troops on the parade ground. The communications room of Chugoku Military District Headquarters that was responsible for issuing and lifting air raid warnings was located in a semi-basement in the castle. Yoshie Oka, a Hijiyama Girls High School student who had been mobilized to serve as a communications officer, had just sent a message that the alarm had been issued for Hiroshima and neighboring Yamaguchi, when the bomb exploded. She used a special phone to inform Fukuyama Headquarters (some 100 kilometers (62 mi) away) that "Hiroshima has been attacked by a new type of bomb. The city is in a state of near-total destruction."

Since Mayor Senkichi Awaya had been killed while eating breakfast with his son and granddaughter at the mayoral residence, Field Marshal Shunroku Hata, who was only slightly wounded, took over the administration of the city, and coordinated relief efforts. Many of his staff had been killed or fatally wounded, including Lieutenant Colonel Yi U, a prince of the Korean imperial family who was serving as a General Staff Officer. Hata's senior surviving staff officer was the wounded Colonel Kumao Imoto, who acted as his chief of staff. Soldiers from the undamaged Hiroshima Ujina Harbor used Shin'yō-class suicide motorboats, intended to repel the American invasion, to collect the wounded and take them down the rivers to the military hospital at Ujina. Trucks and trains brought in relief supplies and evacuated survivors from the city.

Twelve American airmen were imprisoned at the Chugoku Military Police Headquarters, about 400 meters (1,300 ft) from the hypocenter of the blast. Most died instantly, although two were reported to have been executed by their captors, and two prisoners badly injured by the bombing were left next to the Aioi Bridge by the , where they were stoned to death. Eight U.S. prisoners of war killed as part of the medical experiments program at Kyushu University were falsely reported by Japanese authorities as having been killed in the atomic blast as part of an attempted cover up.

Japanese realization of the bombing

The Tokyo control operator of the Japan Broadcasting Corporation noticed that the Hiroshima station had gone off the air. He tried to re-establish his program by using another telephone line, but it too had failed. About 20 minutes later the Tokyo railroad telegraph center realized that the main line telegraph had stopped working just north of Hiroshima. From some small railway stops within 16 km (10 mi) of the city came unofficial and confused reports of a terrible explosion in Hiroshima. All these reports were transmitted to the headquarters of the Imperial Japanese Army General Staff.

Military bases repeatedly tried to call the Army Control Station in Hiroshima. The complete silence from that city puzzled the General Staff; they knew that no large enemy raid had occurred and that no sizable store of explosives was in Hiroshima at that time. A young officer was instructed to fly immediately to Hiroshima, to land, survey the damage, and return to Tokyo with reliable information for the staff. It was felt that nothing serious had taken place and that the explosion was just a rumor.

The staff officer went to the airport and took off for the southwest. After flying for about three hours, while still nearly 160 km (100 mi) from Hiroshima, he and his pilot saw a great cloud of smoke from the firestorm created by the bomb. After circling the city to survey the damage they landed south of the city, where the staff officer, after reporting to Tokyo, began to organize relief measures. Tokyo's first indication that the city had been destroyed by a new type of bomb came from President Truman's announcement of the strike, sixteen hours later.

Events of 7-9 August

After the Hiroshima bombing, Truman issued a statement announcing the use of the new weapon. He stated, "We may be grateful to Providence" that the German atomic bomb project had failed, and that the United States and its allies had "spent two billion dollars on the greatest scientific gamble in history-and won". Truman then warned Japan: "If they do not now accept our terms, they may expect a rain of ruin from the air, the like of which has never been seen on this earth. Behind this air attack will follow sea and land forces in such numbers and power as they have not yet seen and with the fighting skill of which they are already well aware." This was a widely broadcast speech picked up by Japanese news agencies.

The 50,000-watt standard wave station on Saipan, the OWI radio station, broadcast a similar message to Japan every 15 minutes about Hiroshima, stating that more Japanese cities would face a similar fate in the absence of immediate acceptance of the terms of the Potsdam Declaration and emphatically urged civilians to evacuate major cities. Radio Japan, which continued to extoll victory for Japan by never surrendering had informed the Japanese of the destruction of Hiroshima by a single bomb.

Soviet Foreign Minister Vyacheslav Molotov had informed Tokyo of the Soviet Union's unilateral abrogation of the Soviet-Japanese Neutrality Pact on 5 April. At two minutes past midnight on 9 August, Tokyo time, Soviet infantry, armor, and air forces had launched the Manchurian Strategic Offensive Operation. Four hours later, word reached Tokyo of the Soviet Union's official declaration of war. The senior leadership of the Japanese Army began preparations to impose martial law on the nation, with the support of Minister of War Korechika Anami, to stop anyone attempting to make peace.

On 7 August, a day after Hiroshima was destroyed, Dr. Yoshio Nishina and other atomic physicists arrived at the city, and carefully examined the damage. They then went back to Tokyo and told the cabinet that Hiroshima was indeed destroyed by a nuclear weapon. Admiral Soemu Toyoda, the Chief of the Naval General Staff, estimated that no more than one or two additional bombs could be readied, so they decided to endure the remaining attacks, acknowledging "there would be more destruction but the war would go on". American Magic codebreakers intercepted the cabinet's messages.

Purnell, Parsons, Tibbets, Spaatz, and LeMay met on Guam that same day to discuss what should be done next. Since there was no indication of Japan surrendering, they decided to proceed with dropping another bomb. Parsons said that Project Alberta would have it ready by 11 August, but Tibbets pointed to weather reports indicating poor flying conditions on that day due to a storm, and asked if the bomb could be readied by 9 August. Parsons agreed to try to do so.

Nagasaki during World War II

The Bockscar and its crew, who dropped a Fat Man atomic bomb on Nagasaki

The city of Nagasaki had been one of the largest seaports in southern Japan, and was of great wartime importance because of its wide-ranging industrial activity, including the production of ordnance, ships, military equipment, and other war materials. The four largest companies in the city were Mitsubishi Shipyards, Electrical Shipyards, Arms Plant, and Steel and Arms Works, which employed about 90 percent of the city's labor force, and accounted for 90 percent of the city's industry. Although an important industrial city, Nagasaki had been spared from firebombing because its geography made it difficult to locate at night with AN/APQ-13 radar.

Unlike the other target cities, Nagasaki had not been placed off limits to bombers by the Joint Chiefs of Staff's 3 July directive, and was bombed on a small scale five times. During one of these raids on 1 August, a number of conventional high-explosive bombs were dropped on the city. A few hit the shipyards and dock areas in the southwest portion of the city, and several hit the Mitsubishi Steel and Arms Works. By early August, the city was defended by the 134th Anti-Aircraft Regiment of the 4th Anti-Aircraft Division with four batteries of 7 cm (2.8 in) anti-aircraft guns and two searchlight batteries.

The harbor at Nagasaki in August 1945 before the city was hit with the atomic bomb

In contrast to Hiroshima, almost all of the buildings were of old-fashioned Japanese construction, consisting of timber or timber-framed buildings with timber walls (with or without plaster) and tile roofs. Many of the smaller industries and business establishments were also situated in buildings of timber or other materials not designed to withstand explosions. Nagasaki had been permitted to grow for many years without conforming to any definite city zoning plan; residences were erected adjacent to factory buildings and to each other almost as closely as possible throughout the entire industrial valley. On the day of the bombing, an estimated 263,000 people were in Nagasaki, including 240,000 Japanese residents, 10,000 Korean residents, 2,500 conscripted Korean workers, 9,000 Japanese soldiers, 600 conscripted Chinese workers, and 400 Allied prisoners of war in a camp to the north of Nagasaki.

Bombing of Nagasaki

The Bockscar B-29 and a post war Mk III nuclear weapon painted to resemble the Fat Man bomb, at the National Museum of the United States Air Force, Dayton, Ohio

Responsibility for the timing of the second bombing was delegated to Tibbets. Scheduled for 11 August against Kokura, the raid was moved earlier by two days to avoid a five-day period of bad weather forecast to begin on 10 August. Three bomb pre-assemblies had been transported to Tinian, labeled F-31, F-32, and F-33 on their exteriors. On 8 August, a dress rehearsal was conducted off Tinian by Sweeney using Bockscar as the drop airplane. Assembly F-33 was expended testing the components and F-31 was designated for the 9 August mission.

At 03:47 Tinian time (GMT+10), 02:47 Japanese time, on the morning of 9 August 1945, Bockscar, flown by Sweeney's crew, lifted off from Tinian island with the Fat Man, with Kokura as the primary target and Nagasaki the secondary target. The mission plan for the second attack was nearly identical to that of the Hiroshima mission, with two B-29s flying an hour ahead as weather scouts and two additional B-29s in Sweeney's flight for instrumentation and photographic support of the mission. Sweeney took off with his weapon already armed but with the electrical safety plugs still engaged.

During pre-flight inspection of Bockscar, the flight engineer notified Sweeney that an inoperative fuel transfer pump made it impossible to use 2,400 liters (640 U.S. gal) of fuel carried in a reserve tank. This fuel would still have to be carried all the way to Japan and back, consuming still more fuel. Replacing the pump would take hours; moving the Fat Man to another aircraft might take just as long and was dangerous as well, as the bomb was live. Tibbets and Sweeney therefore elected to have Bockscar continue the mission.

Nagasaki before and after the bombing, after the fires had burned out

This time Penney and Cheshire were allowed to accompany the mission, flying as observers on the third plane, , flown by the group's operations officer, Major James I. Hopkins, Jr. Observers aboard the weather planes reported both targets clear. When Sweeney's aircraft arrived at the assembly point for his flight off the coast of Japan, Big Stink failed to make the rendezvous. According to Cheshire, Hopkins was at varying heights including 2,700 meters (9,000 ft) higher than he should have been, and was not flying tight circles over Yakushima as previously agreed with Sweeney and Captain Frederick C. Bock, who was piloting the support B-29 The Great Artiste. Instead, Hopkins was flying 64-kilometer (40 mi) dogleg patterns. Though ordered not to circle longer than fifteen minutes, Sweeney continued to wait for Big Stink for forty minutes. Before leaving the rendezvous point, Sweeney consulted Ashworth, who was in charge of the bomb. As commander of the aircraft, Sweeney made the decision to proceed to the primary, the city of Kokura.

After exceeding the original departure time limit by nearly a half-hour, Bockscar, accompanied by The Great Artiste, proceeded to Kokura, thirty minutes away. The delay at the rendezvous had resulted in clouds and drifting smoke over Kokura from fires started by a major firebombing raid by 224 B-29s on nearby Yahata the previous day. Additionally, the Yahata Steel Works intentionally burned coal tar, to produce black smoke. The clouds and smoke resulted in 70 percent of the area over Kokura being covered, obscuring the aiming point. Three bomb runs were made over the next 50 minutes, burning fuel and exposing the aircraft repeatedly to the heavy defenses around Kokura, but the bombardier was unable to drop visually. By the time of the third bomb run, Japanese anti-aircraft fire was getting close, and Second Lieutenant Jacob Beser, who was monitoring Japanese communications, reported activity on the Japanese fighter direction radio bands.

With fuel running low because of the failed fuel pump, Bockscar and The Great Artiste headed for their secondary target, Nagasaki. Fuel consumption calculations made en route indicated that Bockscar had insufficient fuel to reach Iwo Jima and would be forced to divert to Okinawa, which had become entirely Allied-occupied territory only six weeks earlier. After initially deciding that if Nagasaki were obscured on their arrival the crew would carry the bomb to Okinawa and dispose of it in the ocean if necessary, Ashworth agreed with Sweeney's suggestion that a radar approach would be used if the target was obscured. At about 07:50 Japanese time, an air raid alert was sounded in Nagasaki, but the "all clear" signal was given at 08:30. When only two B-29 Superfortresses were sighted at 10:53 Japanese Time (GMT+9), the Japanese apparently assumed that the planes were only on reconnaissance and no further alarm was given.

A few minutes later at 11:00 Japanese Time, The Great Artiste dropped instruments attached to three parachutes. These instruments also contained an unsigned letter to Professor Ryokichi Sagane, a physicist at the University of Tokyo who studied with three of the scientists responsible for the atomic bomb at the University of California, Berkeley, urging him to tell the public about the danger involved with these weapons of mass destruction. The messages were found by military authorities but not turned over to Sagane until a month later. In 1949, one of the authors of the letter, Luis Alvarez, met with Sagane and signed the letter.

At 11:01 Japanese Time, a last-minute break in the clouds over Nagasaki allowed Bockscar's bombardier, Captain Kermit Beahan, to visually sight the target as ordered. The Fat Man weapon, containing a core of about 5 kg (11 lb) of plutonium, was dropped over the city's industrial valley. It exploded 47 seconds later at 11:02 Japanese Time at 503 ± 10 m (1,650 ± 33 ft), above a tennis court, halfway between the Mitsubishi Steel and Arms Works in the south and the Nagasaki Arsenal in the north. This was nearly 3 km (1.9 mi) northwest of the planned hypocenter; the blast was confined to the Urakami Valley and a major portion of the city was protected by the intervening hills. The resulting explosion released the equivalent energy of 21 ± 2 kt (87.9 ± 8.4 TJ). Big Stink spotted the explosion from 160 kilometers (100 mi) away, and flew over to observe.

The bomb destroyed the Roman Catholic Urakami Tenshudo Church

Bockscar flew on to Okinawa, arriving with only sufficient fuel for a single approach. Sweeney tried repeatedly to contact the control tower for landing clearance, but received no answer. He could see heavy air traffic landing and taking off from Yontan Airfield. Firing off every flare on board to alert the field to his emergency landing, the Bockscar came in fast, landing at 230 km/h (140 mph) instead of the normal 190 kilometers per hour (120 mph). The number two engine died from fuel starvation as he began the final approach. Touching down on only three engines midway down the landing strip, Bockscar bounced up into the air again for about 7.6 meters (25 ft) before slamming back down hard. The heavy B-29 slewed left and towards a row of parked B-24 bombers before the pilots managed to regain control. Its reversible propellers were insufficient to slow the aircraft adequately, and with both pilots standing on the brakes, Bockscar made a swerving 90-degree turn at the end of the runway to avoid running off it. A second engine died from fuel exhaustion before the plane came to a stop.

Following the mission, there was confusion over the identification of the plane. The first eyewitness account by war correspondent William L. Laurence of The New York Times, who accompanied the mission aboard the aircraft piloted by Bock, reported that Sweeney was leading the mission in The Great Artiste. He also noted its "Victor" number as 77, which was that of Bockscar. Laurence had interviewed Sweeney and his crew, and was aware that they referred to their airplane as The Great Artiste. Except for Enola Gay, none of the 393d's B-29s had yet had names painted on the noses, a fact which Laurence himself noted in his account. Unaware of the switch in aircraft, Laurence assumed Victor 77 was The Great Artiste, which was in fact, Victor 89.

Events on the ground

Although the bomb was more powerful than the one used on Hiroshima, its effects were confined by hillsides to the narrow Urakami Valley. Of 7,500 Japanese employees who worked inside the Mitsubishi Munitions plant, including "mobilized" students and regular workers, 6,200 were killed. Some 17,000-22,000 others who worked in other war plants and factories in the city died as well. Casualty estimates for immediate deaths vary widely, ranging from 22,000 to 75,000. At least 35,000-40,000 people were killed and 60,000 others injured. In the days and months following the explosion, more people died from their injuries. Because of the presence of undocumented foreign workers, and a number of military personnel in transit, there are great discrepancies in the estimates of total deaths by the end of 1945; a range of 60,000 to 80,000 can be found in various studies.

Yōsuke Yamahata photographed this child incinerated in Nagasaki. American forces censored such images in Japan until 1952.[215][216]

Unlike Hiroshima's military death toll, only 150 Japanese soldiers were killed instantly, including 36 from the 134th AAA Regiment of the 4th AAA Division. At least eight Allied prisoners of war (POWs) died from the bombing, and as many as thirteen may have died. The eight confirmed deaths included a British POW, Royal Air Force Corporal Ronald Shaw, and seven Dutch POWs. One American POW, Joe Kieyoomia, was in Nagasaki at the time of the bombing but survived, reportedly having been shielded from the effects of the bomb by the concrete walls of his cell. There were 24 Australian POWs in Nagasaki, all of whom survived.

The radius of total destruction was about 1.6 km (1 mi), followed by fires across the northern portion of the city to 3.2 km (2 mi) south of the bomb. About 58 percent of the Mitsubishi Arms Plant was damaged, and about 78 percent of the Mitsubishi Steel Works. The Mitsubishi Electric Works suffered only 10 percent structural damage as it was on the border of the main destruction zone. The Nagasaki Arsenal was destroyed in the blast. Although many fires likewise burnt following the bombing, in contrast to Hiroshima where sufficient fuel density was available, no firestorm developed in Nagasaki as the damaged areas did not furnish enough fuel to generate the phenomenon. Instead, ambient wind pushed the fire spread along the valley. Had the bomb been dropped more precisely at the intended aiming point, which was downtown Nagasaki at the heart of the historic district, the destruction to medical and administrative infrastructure would have been even greater.

As in Hiroshima, the bombing badly dislocated the city's medical facilities. A makeshift hospital was established at the Shinkozen Primary School, which served as the main medical center. The trains were still running, and evacuated many victims to hospitals in nearby towns. A medical team from a naval hospital reached the city in the evening, and fire-fighting brigades from the neighboring towns assisted in fighting the fires. Takashi Nagai was a doctor working in the radiology department of Nagasaki Medical College Hospital. He received a serious injury that severed his right temporal artery, but joined the rest of the surviving medical staff in treating bombing victims.

Plans for more atomic attacks on Japan

Memorandum from Groves to Marshall regarding the third bomb, with Marshall's hand-written caveat that the third bomb not be used without express presidential instruction

Groves expected to have another "Fat Man" atomic bomb ready for use on 19 August, with three more in September and a further three in October; a second Little Boy bomb (using U-235) would not be available until December 1945. On 10 August, he sent a memorandum to Marshall in which he wrote that "the next bomb ... should be ready for delivery on the first suitable weather after 17 or 18 August." The memo today contains hand-written comment written by Marshall: "It is not to be released over Japan without express authority from the President." At the cabinet meeting that morning, Truman discussed these actions. James Forrestal paraphrased Truman as saying "there will be further dropping of the atomic bomb," while Henry A. Wallace recorded in his diary that: "Truman said he had given orders to stop atomic bombing. He said the thought of wiping out another 100,000 people was too horrific. He didn't like the idea of killing, as he said, 'all those kids.'" The previous order that the target cities were to be attacked with atomic bombs "as made ready" was thus modified. There was already discussion in the War Department about conserving the bombs then in production for Operation Downfall, and Marshall suggested to Stimson that the remaining cities on the target list be spared attack with atomic bombs.

Two more Fat Man assemblies were readied, and scheduled to leave Kirtland Field for Tinian on 11 and 14 August, and Tibbets was ordered by LeMay to return to Albuquerque, New Mexico, to collect them. At Los Alamos, technicians worked 24 hours straight to cast another plutonium core. Although cast, it still needed to be pressed and coated, which would take until 16 August. Therefore, it could have been ready for use on 19 August. Unable to reach Marshall, Groves ordered on his own authority on 13 August that the core should not be shipped.

Surrender of Japan and subsequent occupation

Until 9 August, Japan's war council still insisted on its four conditions for surrender. The full cabinet met at 14:30 on 9 August, and spent most of the day debating surrender. Anami conceded that victory was unlikely, but argued in favor of continuing the war. The meeting ended at 17:30, with no decision having been reached. Suzuki went to the palace to report on the outcome of the meeting, where he met with Kōichi Kido, the Lord Keeper of the Privy Seal of Japan. Kido informed him that the emperor had agreed to hold an imperial conference, and gave a strong indication that the emperor would consent to surrender on condition that be preserved. A second cabinet meeting was held at 18:00. Only four ministers supported Anami's position of adhering to the four conditions, but since cabinet decisions had to be unanimous, no decision was reached before it ended at 22:00.

Calling an imperial conference required the signatures of the prime minister and the two service chiefs, but the Chief Cabinet Secretary Hisatsune Sakomizu had already obtained signatures from Toyoda and General Yoshijirō Umezu in advance, and he reneged on his promise to inform them if a meeting was to be held. The meeting commenced at 23:50. No consensus had emerged by 02:00 on 10 August, but the emperor gave his "sacred decision", authorizing the Foreign Minister, Shigenori Tōgō, to notify the Allies that Japan would accept their terms on one condition, that the declaration "does not comprise any demand which prejudices the prerogatives of His Majesty as a Sovereign ruler."

On 12 August, the Emperor informed the imperial family of his decision to surrender. One of his uncles, Prince Asaka, asked whether the war would be continued if the kokutai could not be preserved. Hirohito simply replied, "Of course." As the Allied terms seemed to leave intact the principle of the preservation of the Throne, Hirohito recorded on 14 August his capitulation announcement which was broadcast to the Japanese nation the next day despite an attempted military coup d'état by militarists opposed to the surrender.

In his declaration's fifth paragraph, Hirohito solely mentions the duration of the conflict; and did not explicitly mention the Soviets as a factor for surrender:

But now the war has lasted for nearly four years. Despite the best that has been done by every one-the gallant fighting of military and naval forces, the diligence and assiduity of Our servants of the State and the devoted service of Our one hundred million people, the war situation has developed not necessarily to Japan's advantage, while the general trends of the world have all turned against her interest.

The sixth paragraph by Hirohito specifically mentions the use of nuclear ordnance devices, from the aspect of the unprecedented damage they caused:

Moreover, the enemy has begun to employ a new and most cruel bomb, the power of which to do damage is, indeed, incalculable, taking the toll of many innocent lives. Should we continue to fight, not only would it result in an ultimate collapse and obliteration of the Japanese nation, but also it would lead to the total extinction of human civilization.

The seventh paragraph gives the reason for the ending of hostilities against the Allies:

Such being the case, how are we to save the millions of our subjects, or to atone ourselves before the hallowed spirits of our imperial ancestors? This is the reason why we have ordered the acceptance of the provisions of the joint declaration of the powers.

In his "Rescript to the Soldiers and Sailors" delivered on 17 August, Hirohito did not refer to the atomic bombs or possible human extinction, and instead described the Soviet declaration of war as "endangering the very foundation of the Empire's existence."

The Hiroshima ruins in March and April 1946, by Daniel A. McGovern and Harry Mimura

On 10 August 1945, the day after the Nagasaki bombing, military photographer Yōsuke Yamahata, correspondent Higashi, and artist Yamada arrived in the city with instructions to record the destruction for propaganda purposes. Yamahata took scores of photographs, and on 21 August, they appeared in Mainichi Shimbun, a popular Japanese newspaper. After Japan's surrender and the arrival of American forces, copies of his photographs were seized amid the ensuing censorship, but some records have survived.

Leslie Nakashima, a former United Press (UP) journalist, filed the first personal account of the scene to appear in American newspapers. He observed that large numbers of survivors continued to die from what later became recognized as radiation poisoning. On 31 August, The New York Times published an abbreviated version of his 27 August UP article. Nearly all references to uranium poisoning were omitted. An editor's note was added to say that, according to American scientists, "the atomic bomb will not have any lingering after-effects."

Wilfred Burchett was also one of the first Western journalists to visit Hiroshima after the bombing. He arrived alone by train from Tokyo on 2 September, defying the traveling ban put in place on Western correspondents. Burchett's dispatch, "The Atomic Plague", was printed by the Daily Express newspaper in London on 5 September 1945. The reports from Nakashima and Burchett informed the public for the first time of the gruesome effects of radiation and nuclear fallout- radiation burns and radiation poisoning, sometimes lasting more than thirty days after the blast. Burchett especially noted that people were dying "horribly" after bleeding from orifices, and their flesh would rot away from the injection holes where vitamin A was administered, to no avail.

The New York Times then apparently reversed course and ran a front-page story by Bill Lawrence confirming the existence of a terrifying affliction in Hiroshima, where many had symptoms such as hair loss and vomiting blood before dying. Lawrence had gained access to the city as part of a press junket promoting the U.S. Army Air Force. Some reporters were horrified by the scene, however, referring to what they saw as a "death laboratory" littered with "human guinea pigs". General MacArthur found the reporting to have turned from good PR into bad PR and threatened to court martial the entire group. He withdrew Burchett's press accreditation and expelled the journalist from the occupation zones. The authorities also accused him of being under the sway of Japanese propaganda and later suppressed another story, on the Nagasaki bombing, by George Weller of the Chicago Daily News. Less than a week after his New York Times story was published, Lawrence also backtracked and dismissed the reports on radiation sickness as Japanese efforts to undermine American morale.

A member of the U.S. Strategic Bombing Survey, Lieutenant Daniel McGovern, used a film crew to document the effects of the bombings in early 1946. The film crew shot 27,000 m (90,000 ft) of film, resulting in a three-hour documentary titled The Effects of the Atomic Bombs Against Hiroshima and Nagasaki. The documentary included images from hospitals, burned-out buildings and cars, and rows of skulls and bones on the ground. It was classified "secret" for the next 22 years. Motion picture company Nippon Eigasha started sending cameramen to Nagasaki and Hiroshima in September 1945. On 24 October 1945, a U.S. military policeman stopped a Nippon Eigasha cameraman from continuing to film in Nagasaki. All Nippon Eigasha's reels were confiscated by the American authorities, but they were requested by the Japanese government, and declassified. The public release of film footage of the city post-attack, and some research about the effects of the attack, was restricted during the occupation of Japan, but the Hiroshima-based magazine, Chugoku Bunka, in its first issue published on 10 March 1946, devoted itself to detailing the damage from the bombing.

The book , written by Pulitzer Prize winner John Hersey and originally published in article form in The New Yorker, is reported to have reached Tokyo in English by January 1947, and the translated version was released in Japan in 1949. It narrated the stories of the lives of six bomb survivors from immediately prior to, and months after, the dropping of the Little Boy bomb. Beginning in 1974, a compilation of drawings and artwork made by the survivors of the bombings began to be compiled, with completion in 1977, and under both book and exhibition format, it was titled The Unforgettable Fire.

Life among the rubble in Hiroshima in March and April 1946. Film footage taken by Lieutenant Daniel A. McGovern (director) and Harry Mimura (cameraman) for a United States Strategic Bombing Survey project.

The bombing amazed Otto Hahn and other German atomic scientists, whom the British held at Farm Hall in Operation Epsilon. Hahn stated that he had not believed an atomic weapon "would be possible for another twenty years"; Werner Heisenberg did not believe the news at first. Carl Friedrich von Weizsäcker said "I think it's dreadful of the Americans to have done it. I think it is madness on their part", but Heisenberg replied, "One could equally well say 'That's the quickest way of ending the war'". Hahn was grateful that the German project had not succeeded in developing "such an inhumane weapon"; Karl Wirtz observed that even if it had, "we would have obliterated London but would still not have conquered the world, and then they would have dropped them on us".

Hahn told the others, "Once I wanted to suggest that all uranium should be sunk to the bottom of the ocean". The Vatican agreed; L'Osservatore Romano expressed regret that the bomb's inventors did not destroy the weapon for the benefit of humanity. Rev. Cuthbert Thicknesse, the dean of St Albans, prohibited using St Albans Abbey for a thanksgiving service for the war's end, calling the use of atomic weapons "an act of wholesale, indiscriminate massacre". Nonetheless, news of the atomic bombing was greeted enthusiastically in the U.S.; a poll in Fortune magazine in late 1945 showed a significant minority of Americans (23 percent) wishing that more atomic bombs could have been dropped on Japan. The initial positive response was supported by the imagery presented to the public (mainly the powerful images of the mushroom cloud). During this time in America, it was a common practice for editors to keep graphic images of death out of films, magazines, and newspapers.

Post-attack casualties

Silent film footage taken in Hiroshima in March 1946 showing survivors with severe burns and keloid scars. Survivors were asked to stand in the orientation they were in at the time of the flash, to document and convey the line-of-sight nature of flash burns, and to show that, much like a sunburn, thick clothing and fabric offered protection in many cases. The sometimes extensive burn scar contracture is not unusual, being common to all second- and third-degree burns when they cover a large area of skin.

An estimated 90,000 to 140,000 people in Hiroshima (up to 39 percent of the population) and 60,000 to 80,000 people in Nagasaki (up to 32 percent of the population) died in 1945, though the number which died immediately as a result of exposure to the blast, heat, or due to radiation, is unknown. One Atomic Bomb Casualty Commission report discusses 6,882 people examined in Hiroshima and 6,621 people examined in Nagasaki, who were largely within 2,000 meters (6,600 ft) of the hypocenter, who suffered injuries from the blast and heat but died from complications frequently compounded by acute radiation syndrome (ARS), all within about 20 to 30 days. Many people not injured by the blast eventually died within that timeframe as well after suffering from ARS. At the time, the doctors had no idea what the cause was and were unable to effectively treat the condition. Midori Naka was the first death officially certified to be the result of radiation poisoning or, as it was referred to by many, the "atomic bomb disease". She was some 650 meters (2,130 ft) from the hypocenter at Hiroshima and would die on 24 August 1945 after traveling to Tokyo. It was unappreciated at the time but the average radiation dose that would kill approximately 50 percent of adults (the LD50) was approximately halved; that is, smaller doses were made more lethal when the individual experienced concurrent blast or burn polytraumatic injuries. Conventional skin injuries that cover a large area frequently result in bacterial infection; the risk of sepsis and death is increased when a usually non-lethal radiation dose moderately suppresses the white blood cell count.

In the spring of 1948, the Atomic Bomb Casualty Commission (ABCC) was established in accordance with a presidential directive from Truman to the National Academy of Sciences- National Research Council to conduct investigations of the late effects of radiation among the survivors in Hiroshima and Nagasaki. In 1956, the ABCC published The Effect of Exposure to the Atomic Bombs on Pregnancy Termination in Hiroshima and Nagasaki. The ABCC became the Radiation Effects Research Foundation (RERF) on 1 April 1975. A binational organization run by both the United States and Japan, the RERF is still in operation today.

Cancer increases

Cancers do not immediately emerge after exposure to radiation; instead, radiation-induced cancer has a minimum latency period of some five years and above, and leukemia some two years and above, peaking around six to eight years later. Jarrett Foley published the first major reports on the significant increased incidence of the latter among survivors. Almost all cases of leukemia over the following 50 years were in people exposed to more than 1 Gy. In a strictly dependent manner dependent on their distance from the hypocenter, in the 1987 Life Span Study, conducted by the Radiation Effects Research Foundation, a statistical excess of 507 cancers, of undefined lethality, were observed in 79,972 hibakusha who had still been living between 1958 and 1987 and who took part in the study. As the epidemiology study continues with time, the RERF estimates that, from 1950 to 2000, 46 percent of leukemia deaths which may include Sadako Sasaki and 11 percent of solid cancers of unspecified lethality were likely due to radiation from the bombs or some other post-attack city effects, with the statistical excess being 200 leukemia deaths and 1,700 solid cancers of undeclared lethality. Both of these statistics being derived from the observation of approximately half of the total survivors, strictly those who took part in the study. A meta-analysis from 2016 found that radiation exposure increases cancer risk, but also that the average lifespan of survivors was reduced by only a few months compared to those not exposed to radiation.

Birth defect investigations

While during the preimplantation period, that is one to ten days following conception, intrauterine radiation exposure of "at least 0.2 Gy" can cause complications of implantation and death of the human embryo. The number of miscarriages caused by the radiation from the bombings, during this radiosensitive period, is not known.

One of the early studies conducted by the ABCC was on the outcome of pregnancies occurring in Hiroshima and Nagasaki, and in a control city, Kure, located 29 km (18 mi) south of Hiroshima, to discern the conditions and outcomes related to radiation exposure. James V. Neel led the study which found that the overall number of birth defects was not significantly higher among the children of survivors who were pregnant at the time of the bombings. He also studied the longevity of the children who survived the bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki, reporting that between 90 and 95 percent were still living 50 years later.

While the National Academy of Sciences raised the possibility that Neel's procedure did not filter the Kure population for possible radiation exposure which could bias the results, overall, a statistically insignificant increase in birth defects occurred directly after the bombings of Nagasaki and Hiroshima when the cities were taken as wholes, in terms of distance from the hypocenters. However, Neel and others noted that in approximately 50 humans who were of an early gestational age at the time of the bombing and who were all within about 1 kilometer (0.62 mi) of the hypocenter, an increase in microencephaly and anencephaly was observed upon birth, with the incidence of these two particular malformations being nearly 3 times what was to be expected when compared to the control group in Kure.

In 1985, Johns Hopkins University geneticist James F. Crow examined Neel's research and confirmed that the number of birth defects was not significantly higher in Hiroshima and Nagasaki. Many members of the ABCC and its successor Radiation Effects Research Foundation (RERF) were still looking for possible birth defects among the survivors decades later, but found no evidence that they were significantly common among the survivors or inherited in the children of survivors.

Investigations into brain development

Despite the small sample size of 1,600 to 1,800 persons who came forth as prenatally exposed at the time of the bombings, that were both within a close proximity to the two hypocenters, to survive the absorption of a substantial dose of radiation and then the malnourished post-attack environment, data from this cohort does support the increased risk of severe mental retardation (SMR), that was observed in some 30 individuals, with SMR being a common outcome of the aforementioned microencephaly. While a lack of statistical data, with just 30 individuals out of 1,800, prevents a definitive determination of a threshold point, the data collected suggests a threshold intrauterine or fetal dose for SMR, at the most radiosensitive period of cognitive development, when there is the largest number of undifferentiated neural cells (8 to 15 weeks post-conception) to begin at a threshold dose of approximately "0.09" to "0.15" Gy, with the risk then linearly increasing to a 43-percent rate of SMR when exposed to a fetal dose of 1 Gy at any point during these weeks of rapid neurogenesis.

However either side of this radiosensitive age, none of the prenatally exposed to the bombings at an age less than 8 weeks, that is prior to synaptogenesis or at a gestational age more than 26 weeks "were observed to be mentally retarded", with the condition therefore being isolated to those solely of 8-26 weeks of age and who absorbed more than approximately "0.09" to "0.15" Gy of prompt radiation energy.

Examination of the prenatally exposed in terms of IQ performance and school records, determined the beginning of a statistically significant reduction in both, when exposed to greater than 0.1 to 0.5 gray, during the same gestational period of 8-25 weeks. However outside this period, at less than 8 weeks and greater than 26 after conception, "there is no evidence of a radiation-related effect on scholastic performance."

The reporting of doses in terms of absorbed energy in units of grays and rads - rather than the biologically significant, biologically weighted sievert in both the SMR and cognitive performance data - is typical. The reported threshold dose variance between the two cities is suggested to be a manifestation of the difference between X-ray and neutron absorption, with Little Boy emitting substantially more neutron flux, whereas the Baratol that surrounded the core of Fat Man filtered or shifted the absorbed neutron-radiation profile, so that the dose of radiation energy received in Nagasaki was mostly that from exposure to X-rays/gamma rays. Contrast this to the environment within 1500 meters of the hypocenter at Hiroshima, where the in-utero dose depended more on the absorption of neutrons which have a higher biological effect per unit of energy absorbed. From the radiation dose reconstruction work, the estimated dosimetry at Hiroshima still has the largest uncertainty as the Little Boy bomb design was never tested before deployment or afterward, therefore the estimated radiation profile absorbed by individuals at Hiroshima had required greater reliance on calculations than the Japanese soil, concrete and roof-tile measurements which began to reach accurate levels and thereby inform researchers, in the 1990s.

Many other investigations into cognitive outcomes, such as schizophrenia as a result of prenatal exposure, have been conducted with "no statistically significant linear relationship seen". There is a suggestion that in the most extremely exposed, those who survived within a kilometer or so of the hypocenters, a trend emerges akin to that seen in SMR, though the sample size is too small to determine with any significance.

Torii, Nagasaki, Japan. One-legged torii in the background

The survivors of the bombings are called , a Japanese word that literally translates to "explosion-affected people". The Japanese government has recognized about 650,000 people as hibakusha. As of March 31, 2023, 113,649 were still alive, mostly in Japan. The government of Japan recognizes about one percent of these as having illnesses caused by radiation.[better source needed ] The memorials in Hiroshima and Nagasaki contain lists of the names of the hibakusha who are known to have died since the bombings. Updated annually on the anniversaries of the bombings, as of August 2023, the memorials record the names of 535,000 hibakusha; 339,227 in Hiroshima and 195,607 in Nagasaki.

If they discuss their background, hibakusha and their children were (and still are) victims of fear-based discrimination and exclusion for marriage or work due to public ignorance; much of the public persist with the belief that the hibakusha carry some hereditary or even contagious disease. This is despite the fact that no statistically demonstrable increase of birth defects/congenital malformations was found among the later conceived children born to survivors of the nuclear weapons used at Hiroshima and Nagasaki, or indeed has been found in the later conceived children of cancer survivors who had previously received radiotherapy. The surviving women of Hiroshima and Nagasaki, that could conceive, who were exposed to substantial amounts of radiation, went on and had children with no higher incidence of abnormalities/birth defects than the rate which is observed in the Japanese average. A study of the long-term psychological effects of the bombings on the survivors found that even 17-20 years after the bombings had occurred survivors showed a higher prevalence of anxiety and somatization symptoms.

Double survivors

Perhaps as many as 200 people from Hiroshima sought refuge in Nagasaki. The 2006 documentary Twice Survived: The Doubly Atomic Bombed of Hiroshima and Nagasaki documented 165 nijū hibakusha (lit. double explosion-affected people), nine of whom claimed to be in the blast zone in both cities. On 24 March 2009, the Japanese government officially recognized Tsutomu Yamaguchi as a double hibakusha. He was confirmed to be 3 km (1.9 mi) from ground zero in Hiroshima on a business trip when the bomb was detonated. He was seriously burnt on his left side and spent the night in Hiroshima. He arrived at his home city of Nagasaki on 8 August, the day before the bombing, and he was exposed to residual radiation while searching for his relatives. He was the first officially recognized survivor of both bombings. He died in 2010 of stomach cancer.

Korean survivors

During the war, Japan brought as many as 670,000 Korean conscripts to Japan to work as forced labor. About 5,000-8,000 Koreans were killed in Hiroshima and another 1,500-2,000 died in Nagasaki. For many years, Korean survivors had a difficult time fighting for the same recognition as Hibakusha as afforded to all Japanese survivors, a situation which resulted in the denial of the free health benefits to them in Japan. Most issues were eventually addressed in 2008 through lawsuits.

Hiroshima was subsequently struck by Typhoon Ida on 17 September 1945. More than half the bridges were destroyed, and the roads and railroads were damaged, further devastating the city. The population increased from 83,000 soon after the bombing to 146,000 in February 1946. The city was rebuilt after the war, with help from the national government through the Hiroshima Peace Memorial City Construction Law passed in 1949. It provided financial assistance for reconstruction, along with land donated that was previously owned by the national government and used for military purposes. In 1949, a design was selected for the Hiroshima Peace Memorial Park. Hiroshima Prefectural Industrial Promotion Hall, the closest surviving building to the location of the bomb's detonation, was designated the Hiroshima Peace Memorial. The Hiroshima Peace Memorial Museum was opened in 1955 in the Peace Park. Hiroshima also contains a Peace Pagoda, built in 1966 by Nipponzan-Myōhōji.

On January 27, 1981, the Atomic Bombing Relic Selecting Committee of Hiroshima announced to build commemorative plaques at nine historical sites related to the bombing in the year. Genbaku Dome, Shima Hospital (hypocenter), Motoyasu Bridge all unveiled plaques with historical photographs and descriptions. The rest sites planned including Hondō Shopping Street, Motomachi No.2 Army Hospital site, Hiroshima Red Cross Hospital, Fukuromachi Elementary School, Hiroshima City Hall and Hiroshima Station. The committee also planned to establish 30 commemorative plaques in three years.

Nagasaki was also rebuilt after the war, but was dramatically changed in the process. The pace of reconstruction was initially slow, and the first simple emergency dwellings were not provided until 1946. The focus on redevelopment was the replacement of war industries with foreign trade, shipbuilding and fishing. This was formally declared when the Nagasaki International Culture City Reconstruction Law was passed in May 1949. New temples were built, as well as new churches owing to an increase in the presence of Christianity. Some of the rubble was left as a memorial, such as a at Sannō Shrine, and an arch near ground zero. New structures were also raised as memorials, such as the Nagasaki Atomic Bomb Museum, which was opened in the mid-1990s.

Debate over bombings

The role of the bombings in Japan's surrender, and the ethical, legal, and military controversies surrounding the United States' justification for them have been the subject of scholarly and popular debate. On one hand, it has been argued that the bombings caused the Japanese surrender, thereby preventing casualties that an invasion of Japan would have involved. Stimson talked of saving one million casualties. The naval blockade might have starved the Japanese into submission without an invasion, but this would also have resulted in many more Japanese deaths.

However, critics of the bombings have cited a belief that atomic weapons are fundamentally immoral, that the bombings were war crimes, and that they constituted state terrorism. The Japanese may have surrendered without the bombings, but only an unconditional surrender would satisfy the Allies. Others, such as historian Tsuyoshi Hasegawa, argued that the entry of the Soviet Union into the war against Japan "played a much greater role than the atomic bombs in inducing Japan to surrender because it dashed any hope that Japan could terminate the war through Moscow's mediation". A view among critics of the bombings, popularized by American historian Gar Alperovitz in 1965, is the idea of atomic diplomacy: that the United States used nuclear weapons to intimidate the Soviet Union in the early stages of the Cold War. James Orr wrote that this idea became the accepted position in Japan and that it may have played some part in the decision making of the US government.

Legal considerations

The Hague Conventions of 1899 and 1907, which address the codes of wartime conduct on land and at sea, were adopted before the rise of air power. Despite repeated diplomatic attempts to update international humanitarian law to include aerial warfare, it was not updated before the outbreak of World War II. The absence of specific international humanitarian law did not mean aerial warfare was not covered under the laws of war, but rather that there was no general agreement of how to interpret those laws. This means that aerial bombardment of civilian areas in enemy territory by all major belligerents during World War II was not prohibited by positive or specific customary international humanitarian law.

In 1963 the bombings were subjected to judicial review in Ryuichi Shimoda v. The State. The District Court of Tokyo ruled the use of nuclear weapons in warfare wasn't illegal, but held in its obiter dictum that the atomic bombings of both Hiroshima and Nagasaki were illegal under international law as it existed at that time, as an indiscriminate bombardment of undefended cities. The court denied the appellants compensation on the grounds that the Japanese government had waived the right for reparations from the U.S. government under the Treaty of San Francisco.

By 30 June 1946, there were components for nine atomic bombs in the US arsenal, all Fat Man devices identical to the one used in the bombing of Nagasaki. The nuclear weapons were handmade devices, and a great deal of work remained to improve their ease of assembly, safety, reliability and storage before they were ready for production. There were also many improvements to their performance that had been suggested or recommended, but that had not been possible under the pressure of wartime development. The Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, Fleet Admiral William D. Leahy, decried the use of the atomic bombs as adopting "an ethical standard common to the barbarians of the Dark Ages", but in October 1947 he reported a military requirement for 400 bombs.

The American monopoly on nuclear weapons lasted four years before the Soviet Union detonated an atomic bomb in September 1949. The United States responded with the development of the hydrogen bomb, a nuclear weapon a thousand times as powerful as the bombs that devastated Hiroshima and Nagasaki. Such ordinary fission bombs would henceforth be regarded as small tactical nuclear weapons. By 1986, the United States had 23,317 nuclear weapons and the Soviet Union had 40,159. In early 2019, more than 90% of the world's 13,865 nuclear weapons were owned by the United States and Russia.

By 2020, nine nations had nuclear weapons, but Japan was not one of them. Japan reluctantly signed the Treaty on the Non-Proliferation of Nuclear Weapons in February 1970, but is still sheltered under the American nuclear umbrella. American nuclear weapons were stored on Okinawa, and sometimes in Japan itself, albeit in contravention of agreements between the two nations. Lacking the resources to fight the Soviet Union using conventional forces, NATO came to depend on the use of nuclear weapons to defend itself during the Cold War, a policy that became known in the 1950s as the New Look. In the decades after Hiroshima and Nagasaki, the United States would threaten to use its nuclear weapons many times.

On 7 July 2017, more than 120 countries voted to adopt the UN Treaty on the Prohibition of Nuclear Weapons. Elayne Whyte Gómez, President of the UN negotiations on the nuclear ban treaty, said, "the world has been waiting for this legal norm for 70 years," since the atomic bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki in August 1945. As of 2023, Japan has not signed the treaty.

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Further reading

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Atomic bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki - Wikipedia

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Operation Centerboard Part of the Pacific War of World War II Type Nuclear bombing Location Date 6 and 9 August 1945 Executed by Casualties Hiroshima: 70,000-126,000 civilians killed 7,000-20,000 soldiers killed 12 Allied prisoners of war Nagasaki: 60,000-80,000 killed (within 4 months) 150+ soldiers killed 8-13 Allied prisoners of war On 6 and 9 August 1945, the United States detonated two atomic bombs over the Japanese cities of Hiroshima and Nagasaki respectively.

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SOURCE: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cuban_Revolution

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https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pong

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