Leo Szilard and the Atomic Bomb You are driving along, you stop at a red light, you are probably thinking about what you will have for dinner, but while Dr. Leo Szilard was stopped at a red light he came up with an idea that would destroy two cities, kill hundreds of thousands of people, shock the world and make history - the atomic bomb. One hundred thousand people worked to build the atomic bomb, it killed over 130,000 people in one day at Hiroshima. Dr. Leo Szilard gave birth in his mind to the atomic bomb while sitting at a red light in September 1933, at the South Hampton Row intersection in London. His