Race for the Bomb:
    The discovery of nuclear fission had started a new era of weapons.  Fear of German aggression was the stimulus for the Americans to make the atomic bomb.  After the attack of Pearl Harbor, America entered the war and this gave the program additional urgency.  The program was called the Manhattan Project.   Great scientists from all over the United States and Europe came to help design such a weapon.

Fuel for the Bomb:
    To get fission, you need fissionable material.  Uranium 235 was used for this.  The hard part was obtaining this rare material.  Uranium 235 exists in less than one percent of the more abundant uranium 238 which is obtained from uranium ore.  To make matters worse, these two elements are naturally bounded and the separation process was almost impossible.

Testing the Bomb:
    The test site was called Trinity.  A uranium bomb named Jumbo was originally designed to be tested but because of the perfected plutonium technology by the time the bomb was fully assembled, it was decided that the bomb would not be used.

The Difficult Decision:
    Now that the bombs have been assembled, it was time to decide whether or not to use it.  Using the bomb could help end the war faster, but also run the risk of starting a nuclear war.  Not using the bomb would not run that risk but the war would last longer and many more lives will be lost.

The End of the War:
    President Truman ordered the bomb to be dropped on two major cities in Japan that had not yet experienced conventional bombing to demonstrate the full power of the bomb.  The two cities picked were Nagasaki, and Hiroshima.