How Stalin Took Japan by Surprise in 1945
Reeling from two atomic bombs, the Japanese were physically and psychologically un-prepared for a massive invasion from communist Russia.
Here's What You Need to Know: Stalin had his own agenda, and Soviet participation in the Far East was at the top of his list.
At 11:02 am on August 9, 1945, an American warplane dropped an atomic device nicknamed “Fat Man” onto the city of Nagasaki, Japan. The bomb, generating the explosive power of 22,000 tons of TNT, killed at least 30,000 people instantly. It was the second of two atomic bombs dropped in three days’ time on Japan by an American government intent on forcing the aggressor nation’s unconditional surrender and hastening an end to World War II. But it was also the day that the Soviet invasion of Manchuria officially began.