Lectures For Lifelong Learners!

In August of 1945, the United States dropped two atomic bombs on Japan, bringing World War II to an end and opening the Atomic Age. Four years later, the Soviet Union exploded its first atomic bomb, creating an atomic-armed adversary. This multimedia presentation looks at the impact of “The Bomb” on American politics and American society from the late 1940s through the early 1960s. This was a time when many in government as well as the American people thought an atomic war was not just a possibility but a probability. And it was a time when grown-ups drank atomic cocktails and practiced civil defense drills, and children hid under their desks at school and played with atomic toys at home.