Effects of the WWII Atomic Bombs When the atomic bomb went off over Hiroshima on Aug. 6th, 1945, 70,000 lives were ended in a flash. To the American people who were weary from the long and brutal war, such a drastic measure seemed a necessary, even righteous way to end the madness that was World War II. However, the madness had just begun. That August morning was the day that heralded the dawn of the nuclear age, and with it came more than just the loss of lives. According to Archibald MacLeish, a U.S. poet, "What happened at Hiroshima was not only that a scientific breakthrough . . . had occurred and that a great part of the population of a city had been burne