USA HISTORY

AMERICAN IMPERIALISM(1890 1919)

THE UNITED STATES IN WORLD WAR I

[SOURCES]
Why did President Harry Truman decide to bomb the Japanese cities of Hiroshima and Nagasaki in 1945?

(A) to win re-election following the war.

(B) to instill fear in the Soviet Union, who also had a bomb.

(C) to retaliate against Japan for attacking Pearl Harbor.

(D) ** to prevent a ground invasion of Japan that could have cost a million American lives.

EXPLANATIONS BELOW

Concept note-1: -Truman did not seek to destroy Japanese culture or people; the goal was to destroy Japan’s ability to make war. So, on the morning of August 6, 1945, the American B-29 bomber, the Enola Gay, dropped the world’s first atom bomb over the city of Hiroshima.