It was during the Second World War that the United States became a world power, thanks in a large part to its monopoly on atomic weapons. The atomic bomb is a weapon with great explosive power that results form the sudden release of energy upon the splitting, or fission of the nuclei of such heavy elements as plutonium or uranium. This new destructive force wrecked havoc on two Japanese cities and caused the end of …showed first 75 words of 1978 total…

…showed last 75 words of 1978 total…the bombs ushered the world into a nuclear age. Since the first test millions of people have wondered whether nuclear weapons will spell the end of life on our planet. That question was first raised on the New Mexico desert in 1945 when a scientist remarked, " Am sure that at the end of the world- at the last millisecond of the world's existence-the last man will see something very familiar to what we have seen today."