The Atomic Bomb (1914)
The first atom bomb was dropped on Hiroshima, Japan, on August 6, 1945. The second one was dropped on Nagasaki a few days later. But the first “fictional” atom bomb was dropped in H.G. Wells’ 1914 novel The World Set Free.
Though the book was published at least 30 years before the geniuses at the Manhattan Project began trying to create the ultimate weapon, Wells managed to capture the devastating effects of an atomic explosion.
“Perished museums, cathedrals, palaces, libraries, galleries of masterpieces and a vast accumulation of human achievement whose charred remains lie buried,” he wrote, “a legacy of curious material that only future generations may hope to examine.”
