War has played a key role in the history of the United States, from the nation's founding

right down to the present. War made the U.S. independent, kept it together, increased its

size, and established it as a global superpower. Understanding America's wars is essential for understanding American history.

Welcome to Key Battles of American History,

a podcast in which we discuss American history

through the lens of the most important battles of America's wars.

Here is your host, James Early.

Thank you. James Early.

Welcome back to Key Battles of the Pacific Theater of World War II.

This is your host, James, as always.

And we are coming up to the end very quickly.

In fact, this is the end.

This is our 10th and final key battle.

And as I said before, it's technically not a battle, but I know my listeners are very flexible and you'll work with me on this.

It's a monumental event in which tens of thousands, eventually hundreds of thousands were

killed.

And so we'll count it as a sort of battle.

And of course, I'm talking about the dropping of the atomic bombs on Hiroshima, Nagasaki,

and then the events after that, the end of the war.

You may recall in our last episode, we talked about some of the military and diplomatic events that led up to this point.

We talked about the military and diplomatic events that led up to this point. We talked about

the nonstop, relentless, almost daily bombing campaign that the Allies were conducting

...