Eighty years ago this week the world learns the power of atomic weapons

 

Japan's failure to respond to the invitation to surrender in the Potsdam declaration prompted President Truman to order the use of the atomic bomb in anger. One was dropped on the city of Hiroshima, killing about half of its population of 343,000; half of these died immediately and the others from their wounds or radiation poisoning in the following months. People were simply vaporized leaving no more than a shadow on the ground.

Any hopes that Stalin might have entertained that the new Labour government of Britain might have been more pliable at the Potsdam conference were disappointed when the British continued to oppose his urging to act against Franco's Spain. The three powers compromised to announce that Spain would not be allowed into the United Nations organization under his regime as it had been established with the assistance of the Fascist powers.

Attlee included two notable leftwing former rebels in his government. Aneurin Bevan was made minister of health although the job was to be smaller than it had been, as responsibility for housing was to be given to another minister. Manny Shinwell became minister of power where he would have responsibility for coal-mining which Labour had pledged to nationalize.

The bodies of 100 Italians were discovered in a disused mineshaft outside Trieste. They were believed to be Fascists and others killed by Tito's partisans during the weeks in which they occupied the city. 120 dead Germans had been buried on top of them.