In June of 1945, the United States government was presented with the Franck Report. In it, leading scientists advised against using the atomic bomb. They not only cited catastrophic casualties, but also predicted the nuclear arms race that would follow.

The report was named for James Franck, who led the committee that wrote it. Franck's credentials were impeccable: he won the Nobel for Physics in 1925. After the Nazis came to power, he joined many other Jewish scientists and left Germany for America. There, Franck worked on the Manhattan Project. And if his background wasn't enough, many other leading scientists of the time backed the conclusions.

So what did the United States government do? You know the answer: they ignored Frank and his colleagues. Two months later, the bombs were dropped, Hiroshima and Nagasaki were reduce to rubble, and the world entered 40 years of nuclear stand-off.

So what was the point of asking Franck in the first place?