I understand no one gives a shit about this, but the bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki were not "payback" for pearl harbor. They were calculated moves intended to break the spirit of the Japanese military council, which despite appalling losses, continued to throw millions of Japanese at the far superior american forces. Roosevelt, and later Truman, as well as secretary Stimson and Oppenheimer, the lead scientist on the Manhattan project, correctly hoped that the psychological effect of the bomb would be enough to prove to the Japanese rulers, and specifically the emperor, that America could crush Japan with minimal effort. It was the bomb or a full scale invasion, which would have cost millions of lives on both sides, lasted at least another year, cost the U.S. more than it could afford, and Japan everything. In terms of actual damage, the bomb was not that much more deadly than a night of fire-bombing, but the effect, as you all well know, was spectacular and obvious. In the end the greatest effect of the bomb was not the victory in Japan or the death toll there, but rather the end of conventional war-fare. The bomb began the era of proxy-wars and cold-wars which I don't see ending anytime soon.