fat boy

Yesterday marked the moment 60 years ago that a US plane dropped the plutonium bomb known as Fat Man that killed 80,000 people and sealed Japan's defeat in World War II.

On August 6, 1945 the American B-29 bomber known as the Enola Gay released the first atomic bomb to be used in warfare. The 9,000 pound bomb nicknamed "Little Boy" detonated in Hiroshima,

Japan. "Little Boy's" explosion was catastrophic and resulted in 66 thousand instantanous deaths. Total vaporization from the blast measured one half a mile in diameter.

Three days after the release of "Little Boy" a second bomb named "Fat Man" was released on the town of Nagasaki. "Fat Man" weighed 10,000 pounds and annihilated nearly half of the city. In one split-second, the population of Nagasaki dropped from 422,000 to 383,000. As astonishing as this seems, scientist estimate that both "Little Boy" and "Fat Man" only utilized 1/10th of 1 percent of their explosive capabilities.

Completely terrifying that we use words like "nuclear" with such ease today ... sometimes I know one of the great thing about being tucked away in a no-name no-brand country is that threats like this are highly unlikely a la sud pacifica (pray pray and cross fingers).