Fat Man Obliterated Nagasaki: How a Weapon of Mass Destruction Was Made

On August 9, 1945, “Fat Man”, an implosion-type device with a plutonium core, was detonated over the Japanese city of Nagasaki by the United States during the Second World War. It was the second of the only two nuclear weapons ever used in warfare, the first being “Little Boy”, a gun-type weapon with a uranium core, and its detonation marked the third nuclear explosion in history. According to the Radiation Effects Research Foundation, between 90,000 and 166,000 people died in Hiroshima during the first few months after the attack, with another 60,000 to 80,000 dying in Nagasaki.

Nuclear bombs use the energy generated when the nucleus’s particles are split or fused to harness the forces that hold an atom’s nucleus together. But, what does it take to create such a weapon? In this video by the YouTube channel Learn from the base, you can learn more about the engineering behind these weapons of mass destruction.