Can the Bombing of Hiroshima be Justified?

On 6th August 1945, a silverplate Boeing B-29 superfortress flew over the densely populated Japanese city of Hiroshima. The plane, ‘Enola Gay’, was carrying a highly radioactive atomic bomb containing the actinide Uranium-235. Hiroshima is the largest city in the Chugoku region of western Honshu, Japan’s largest island and used to be an embarkation port and industrial centre that was the site of a major military headquarters. The bomb, ‘Little boy’, is estimated to have killed approximately 90,000 – 166,000 people; around 30% of the population were killed instantaneously as their bodies were vaporised. Some bodies had viscera sucked out of them, while others were so badly mutilated from the effects of the bomb that it was hard to identify who was who. As always, there are two sides to every story. Many people argue that America’s actions were wrong; however the Americans believed that what they did was right. There are sources that both support and disagree with America’s action. In this essay I will explore these points and say why the bombing cannot be justified. Some people say that it was a justified decision to bomb Hiroshima. This is because America wanted revenge on Japan for Pearl Harbor. In an interview with James Byrnes, the American Secretary of State, 1965 he says, “We were talking about the people who hadn’t hesitated at Pearl Harbor to make

  • Word count: 2792
  • Level: GCSE
  • Subject: History
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The Arab-Israeli Conflict

GCSE History Coursework Modern World Study: The Arab-Israeli Conflict Why has it been so difficult to bring peace between Israel and the Palestinians since 1948? . The Roots of the Conflict Both the Arabs and the Israelis have equal religious and historical claims over Jerusalem, and these claims are the roots of the conflict. Jerusalem is Judaism's holiest city and is the site of Solomon's temple and the Dome of the Rock mosque, where Abraham sacrificed Isaac. Jerusalem is Islam's third holiest city, and is the site of the Al-Aqsa mosque. Jews first settled Palestine around 1200BC. In 63BC the Romans captured Jerusalem. After the Jewish revolt of 50-60AD the Jews were driven out of Palestine as punishment. This was known as the Diaspora. A second Diaspora followed another revolt in 135AD and from this time until the late nineteenth century Jews spread across Europe and few lived in Palestine. Until 642AD only small numbers of Arabs lived in Palestine. But in 1523 Palestine was conquered by the Turks and became part of the Ottoman Empire. However, the Turks and Arabs were both Muslims. 2. Events since 1948 After the Partition Plan was enforced in 1948, the Jews were given 14760km2 of fertile land. It had taken the Zionists 70 years to purchase 7% of Palestine, and now the UN was offering them another 50%. The plan was rejected by all Arab governments. However, the

  • Word count: 885
  • Level: GCSE
  • Subject: History
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Who was to blame for the cold war?

Who was to blame for the Cold War? The blame for the Cold War cannot be placed on one person -- it developed as a series of chain reactions as a struggle for power. It can be argued that the Cold War was inevitable, and therefore no one's fault, due to the differences in the capitalist and communist ideologies. It was only the need for protection that had caused the two countries to sink their differences temporarily during the Second World War. Yet many of the tensions that existed in the Cold War can be attributed to Stalin's policy of Soviet expansion. Stalin's foreign policies contributed an enormous amount to the tensions of the Cold War. His aim, to take advantage of the military situation in post-war Europe to strengthen Russian influence, was perceived to be a threat to the Americans. Stalin was highly effective in his goal to gain territory, with victories in Poland, Romania, and Finland. To the western world, this success looked as if it were the beginning of serious Russian aggressions. The western view of the time saw Stalin as doing one of two things: either continuing the expansionist policies of the tsars, or worse, spreading communism across the world now that his one-state notion had been fulfilled. Admittedly, the first view of Stalin, as an imperialist leader, may be twisted. The Russians claim, and have always claimed, that Stalin's motives were

  • Word count: 980
  • Level: GCSE
  • Subject: History
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Who was to Blame for the Cold War

Angus Walker Who Was to Blame for the Cold War? The Cold War was, in the main, a period of deep mistrust and rivalry between the once allied superpowers America and Russia after World War Two. The Cold War was, in part, and ideological conflict between capitalism (USA) and communism (USSR) and lasted for most of the 20th Century. There were many factors concerning the causes of the Cold War, but they broadly fall under three headings: traditional, revisionist and post-revisionist. The causes of the Cold War are debated heavily. The traditional view, up until the 1960s was that Russia was totally to blame for the Cold War. By the Potsdam conference in July 1945 Stalin's Red Army was in control of most of Eastern Europe. At Yalta five months ago the 'Big Three' of Churchill Roosevelt and Stalin had met and agreed on many points, such as allowing free elections for liberated countries. At Potsdam Stalin flatly refused to do that. He set up communist governments in all countries from Albania to East Germany. Churchill called this division, between the capitalist West and Stalin's East Europe 'an iron curtain'. Some argue that if Stalin had not pursued such radical expansionism then the Cold War would not have happened. The West was clearly alarmed by these 'invasions' which was what they were, and felt they had to do something to stop this, hence the flaunting of nuclear

  • Word count: 995
  • Level: GCSE
  • Subject: History
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Why did the Cold War End?

Why did the Cold War End? Tauseef Ahmed United States History May 13th 2004 Why did the Cold War End? One of the main events of the war-filled twentieth century was the Cold War - a state of tension between the United States of America and the Soviet Union from nineteen forty five, at the beginning of the Soviet expansion of communism in newly formed countries after Word War II, opposed by the United States to nineteen eighty nine with the fall of the Berlin Wall. The main focus of this research will be to state the reasons as to why this hugely acknowledged war comes to an end. It was the most unexpected event that happened and the credit must be given to the leaders on both sides. The Cold War eventually came to an end in 1989 as a result of Gorbachev's Glasnost (openness) and Perestroika (reconstruction) policies; the Soviet's declining communist economy, the costly arms race, and the freedom issues among Baltic Republics, Poland, and East Germany within the Soviet bloc itself. When Mikhail Gorbachev became the General Secretary of the Soviet Union in 1985, he was determined to end corruption in the Soviet economy and get the U.S.S.R. back on its feet. To achieve this goal he announced two new policies Glasnost and Perestroika. Glasnost or openness was the policy that ended the strict censorship, allowed Soviet citizens to speak openly about their society's problems

  • Word count: 2509
  • Level: GCSE
  • Subject: History
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Why was Bletchley Park able to break the German enigma codes?

Why was Bletchley Park able to break the German enigma codes? There were many contributing factors that helped the team at Bletchley Park to break the enigma code, all of which were needed to break it. The first thing that started them off was some help from the Poles. A polish spy has been in the German army and in 1931 stole documents relating to the enigma machine. Polish mathematicians, one of which was Rejewerki, built 2 replicas of the enigma machine and then gave it to Britain. This was a great help as we now knew what it looked like and how it worked. Another thing that helped the team to break the code was the several flaws that were in the enigma machine. When the letter was put in it could never represent itself, which meant that there was in fact only 25 letters; it could be not 26. If a message was shorter than 26 letters then the second and third wheels would not move, hence there were fewer possibilities to the code. It was proven that the machine could not actually make a truly random series. All of these flaws in the machine helped towards the code being broken. One thing that was also a help was the German operators and the flaws they made when using the enigma machine. They all had a code book that told them several things. The plug board swaps, selection of the rotors and where to put the rotors. So they had to have an extra security method in case a

  • Word count: 612
  • Level: GCSE
  • Subject: History
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