Little Boy

First wartime nuke

Little Boy was the code name for the atomic bomb dropped on Hiroshima, Japan, on August 6, 1945—the first nuclear weapon used in warfare.

The name's innocuous, childlike quality stands in grim contrast to the devastation it caused.

Little Boy killed an estimated 80,000 people instantly. (Lowercase little boy is simply a young male child.)

Manhattan Project

Los Alamos

Nuclear research town

critical mass · Trinity test · secrecy · Oppenheimer

Hiroshima

ground zero

Explosion's central impact point

Enola Gay · mushroom cloud · firestorm · hypocenter · reconstruction · resilience · airburst

atomic

uranium

Element ninety-two

enrichment · isotopes · neutrons · radiation · gamma rays · nuclear · U-235 · yield · energy release · blast wave

WWII

Pacific War

Allied-Japanese naval conflict

  • JapanEast Asian archipelago nation
  • NagasakiSecond city bombed atomically
  • Fat ManImplosion-type nuclear device

Emperor Hirohito · occupation · Pearl Harbor · kamikaze · World War II

legacy

nuclear age

Period following fission's harnessing

  • Cold WarProlonged East-West standoff
  • arms raceEscalating weapons accumulation between nations
  • deterrencePrevention via threatened consequences

non-proliferation · disarmament

Categories
Opposites
atomic bomb type

Little BoyFat Man

Implosion-type nuclear device

plutonium bomb · Tsar Bomba · Giant · Colossus

DESTRUCTION vs. PEACE

Little Boynuclear disarmament

Reducing atomic weapon stockpiles

peace dove

destructive scale/naming irony

Little Boygiant

Being of huge size

colossus · leviathan

Family

little, boy, belittle, littlest, littler, belittling, belittlement, littleness, belittled

Familiarity
Top 500,000
Profile
Mostly American · Timeless · Concrete · Negative · Rated PG-13