For the next WWII movie to watch, I watched the Modern Marvels episode on The Manhattan Project.
This episode features the creation of the atomic bomb. It starts out with saying that Germans first started the idea in the mid to late 30's, and the fear of the end of the world scared scientists in Germany who were Jewish, who escaped to the United States and told the main government, at the time a letter was sent to President Franklin Delanor Roosevelt, which was co-signed by Albert Einstein warning him of the capability of such a bomb if it were ever made, and after seeing this, Roosevelt set up the Manhattan project in the early 1940's.
Over the next few years, several scientists worked on the bomb, and even regular civilians worked as well, but they had to keep it a total secret in the fear of spies and other problems, obviously. The bomb took a few years to make, with most of the problems being scientific and hard to explain, but the easiest problems were solved by using basic chemistry, and was somewhat unique yet questioning to some controversial scientists.
One problem that they did not expect was the death of Roosevelt in 1945. When Preisdent Harry Truman took over for him, he had a few complaints about the bomb, but when he saw the test, he agreed to drop the bomb on Japan. He had one last signing of a document officially giving his permission to drop the bomb, and the deciding factor for him comes from a quote from his secratary of war, Burns: "Mr. President, what are you going to say at your impeachment speech in 1946 when the people hear you had the chance to end the war and save American lives, and you didn't take it?"
While I think everyone knows the effects of the atom bombs dropped on Japan, the big thing that makes his both the best and worst thing of the war against Japan in the 1940's. While the war ended, the great losses of Japanese civilians from radiation was catestrophic and the photos seen from the aftermath are haunting, scary, and sad. The results of the Manhattan Project were terrible, yet brilliant.
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Good job!