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AP U.S. History 2.4 Period 7: 1890-1945 223 Views


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AP U.S. History 2.4 Period 7: 1890-1945. Besides forcing Japan to surrender, what was another primary goal of dropping the second atomic bomb?

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Transcript

00:00

[ musical flourish ]

00:02

And here's your Shmoop du jour, brought to you by atomic warfare,

00:06

the long-lasting struggle between protons and neutrons.

00:10

All right, well, give this excerpt a read.

00:12

[ mumbles ]

00:16

Ugh. Give 'em hell, Harry.

00:17

All right, and now the question:

00:19

Besides forcing Japan to surrender, what was another

00:22

primary goal of dropping the second atomic bomb?

00:26

And here are your potential answers.

00:28

[ mumbles ]

00:31

All right. Well, the first atomic bomb dropped on the Japanese city

00:34

of Hiroshima cost somewhere between 90 and 160 plus thousand lives.

00:40

The second atomic bomb,

00:41

dropped on Nagasaki a few days later, killed between

00:44

60,000 and 80,000 people. Right here.

00:48

Though the Americans reportedly used the first bomb to avoid

00:50

a costly ground invasion of Japan,

00:52

many historians believe the second atomic bomb was

00:55

detonated for another reason.

00:57

Let's see which answer reveals that train of thought.

01:01

Was another primary goal of

01:02

dropping the second bomb to A -

01:04

eliminate Japan's future military capabilities?

01:08

Well, with Hiroshima obliterated and Japan's allies defeated,

01:11

the country's potential for future military capabilities

01:14

was pretty much already gone. So it isn't A.

01:18

Could a primary goal of dropping the second bomb have been C -

01:21

thoroughly testing a new technological breakthrough?

01:24

Well, the atomic bomb had already been tested on Hiroshima,

01:27

and if they truly needed another test, the U.S.

01:29

could've used other, less populated locations.

01:32

So that knocks out C.

01:34

Might the second bomb have been used to D -

01:37

punish Japan for its participation in the Axis Powers?

01:40

You know, with the Nazis and all those people?

01:42

Well, while anger and racism against Japan were widespread

01:45

at the time, there's little historical evidence to suggest

01:48

the second atomic bomb was primarily an act of vengeance.

01:51

So it's not D, either.

01:53

Which means the primary goal of dropping the second atomic bomb

01:57

was probably B - to demonstrate the extent of American power to the Soviet Union.

02:02

Both the U.S. and the Soviet Union wanted to emerge

02:04

from World War II as a global superpower,

02:07

and most historians agree that dropping the second bomb

02:10

was intended to intimidate the Soviet Union rather than

02:13

to assure a military victory.

02:15

So B is the correct answer.

02:16

The use of the atomic bomb will always be controversial.

02:20

Couldn't there have been a better solution?

02:22

Yeah, like how about this?

02:25

[ things clattering and breaking ]

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