Read this eerie note Harry Truman left about informing Stalin of the atomic bomb

Often the moments that change the course of human history aren't understood until the consequences of such actions are already realized. That wasn't so with the atomic bomb — President Harry Truman knew the invention was going to change the world forever when he authorized the attacks on Hiroshima and Nagasaki in World War II.

Truman recalled the moment he told Soviet Union leader Joseph Stalin about the plan to drop the bomb — a memory he scrawled on the back of a photograph rediscovered by presidential historian Michael Beschloss:

Around 140,000 people were killed or died within months of the August 6, 1945 attack. Three days later, 80,000 people were killed when a second atomic bomb was dropped on Nagasaki. On Friday, President Obama became the first sitting U.S. president to visit the site of the Hiroshima bombing since Truman's decision.

Subscribe to The Week

Escape your echo chamber. Get the facts behind the news, plus analysis from multiple perspectives.

SUBSCRIBE & SAVE

Sign up for The Week's Free Newsletters

From our morning news briefing to a weekly Good News Newsletter, get the best of The Week delivered directly to your inbox.

From our morning news briefing to a weekly Good News Newsletter, get the best of The Week delivered directly to your inbox.

Sign up