2005/03/15 by J. Samuel Walker · 4 citations
Earth and Planetary Sciences · Social Sciences · Arts and Humanities · #Archaeological Research and Protection #Nuclear Issues and Defense #Twentieth Century Scientific Developments
paper · doi:10.1111/j.1467-7709.2005.00476.x
openalex publication_date 2005/03/15 · openalex created_date 2025/10/10 · openalex updated_date 2026/07/29
In a poll conducted in 1999, the Newseum, a museum of the news media in Arlington, Virginia, asked a panel of sixty-seven American journalists to rank the top one hundred stories of the twentieth century. The event that placed first in the survey of “prominent reporters, editors, broadcasters, photographers, and cartoonists” was the atomic bombing of Japan in 1945; its closest competitors were the landing on the moon, the attack on Pearl Harbor, and the first successful flight by the Wright brothers.1 In accordance with the importance that the panel of journalists assigned to the use of atomic bombs, the subject has, over the period of nearly six decades, received a great deal of attention from scholars. It has also produced bitter and highly polarized controversy. The publication of an enormous body of literature has failed to resolve the differences over President Harry S. Truman's decision to use atomic bombs; indeed, it has chronically fueled the debate between the opposing positions.