President Truman informed Prime Minister Churchill that the atomic bomb test had been successful in a stating: "Babies satisfactorily born."
Not so coincidently, American interest in Soviet participation in the war against Japan was noticeably lessened.
A fire broke out on the jetty of the Bedford Magazine during the evening causing a chain reaction of fires, explosions, and concussions that continued for more than 24 hours. Fifteen people were killed.
Captured German mines in Italy exploded destroying an American Red Cross club resulting in the death of 36 people.
Aircraft from the USS Wasp attacked Wake Island.
The U.S. Army Air Force, flying out of Okinawa, bombed Kiangwan airfield near Shanghai.
The Brazilian Expeditionary Force parades through Rio de Janeiro marking its return from Italy.
The Belgian senate voted to forbid the return of Leopold III.
Yesterday, tragedy struck Beirut, Lebanon, a city that's had more than its fair share of misery.
As has been reported, the explosion was caused by a fire that spread and detonated a very large quantity of nitrate fertilizer stored at a warehouse on the docks. The explosion was of a gigantic magnitude. So large, in fact, that some Lebanese authorities at first wondered if they'd been hit by an atomic device. That speculation, ironically enough, was strangely timely, as today is the 75th anniversary of the American use of an atomic device on Hiroshima.
So how does this historic event compare to other such blasts?
Should we even make that comparison for that matter? Well, we will, simply because perhaps such things are important to know.
As big as the blast was, and it was really huge, it still doesn't replace the accidental blast that's oddly analogous that occured at Halifax on December 6, 1917. We marked the centennial of that tragedy here:
Halifax was a 2.9 kiloton explosion. Absolutely massive, and actually now larger than the lowest low yield atomic weapons in terms of their potential, but thankfully unexploited, yields.
In contrast, the Beirut blast seems to be about 2.04 kt. Massive, but still 1/3d less than the huge Halifax detonation. Still, that yield is below the lowest, low yield nuclear weapons, although weapons in that class could legitimately be regarded as extremely low yield, in context.
Indeed, that's what makes them dangerous. As big as the Beirut explosion was, it so far below Hiroshima and Nagasaki, which we'll mention below, that there's no comparison. That fact is what might tempt the use of a very low yield nuclear weapon. . .which might provoke use of higher yield ones.
Hiroshima's mushroom cloud taken some minutes later and from a distance of six miles.
Hiroshima, whose 75th anniversary is today, was a 15kt atomic bomb.
Imagine that. It was seven times as powerful as the blast in Beirut earlier this week.
