Then there was a flush of neutrons from the fireball that followed, and that was the primary killing mechanism.” “It was like a gigantic sunburn over the entire area. “There was a 10,000-degree flash of intense light,” says historian Richard Rhodes, who received the Pulitzer Prize in 1986 for his book The Making of the Atomic Bomb. Seventy-five years ago, on August 6, 1945, the world entered the nuclear age with the detonation of the first atomic bomb in warfare over Hiroshima, Japan. The next, a brilliant flash of light blinded everyone and altered the course of history. One moment, it was a warm summer’s day with a few clouds in the sky.
