I like the list, but I have two comments:
1. Yes, that is the first Ronald McDonald (I just realized that his original nose was a cup), but the article failed to note that the part was then played by Willard Scott, future celebrity weather reporter.
Man, those french fries look gnarly. The food may not have improved since then, but the food photography definitely has.
Sidebar: When I worked at McDs in the 1960s, we used to receive deliveries of potatoes that needed to be peeled, washed and shaped in the rear sinks. Today the restaurants receive their french fries pre-cut, in a frozen and partially cooked state, from a central processing plant.
2. That is a picture of a B-29, but it’s not a picture of the Enola Gay dropping the atomic bomb. How could it be? First, the picture was taken from another plane at a higher altitude. No such observers existed over Hiroshima that day. Second, the explosion beneath it was obviously from a bomb dropped earlier by another plane in front of the pictured one. Third, the Enola Gay didn’t have a damaged engine.
It’s an official Army Air photo, and was described by the Associated Press as follows:
Official 21st Bomber Command photo, with its No. 3 engine out, this Tinian-based U.S. Army Air Forces B-29 Superfortress continues its bombing run over Osaka, Japan, on June 1, 1945.
That assault on Osaka was quite a raid.
From Wikipedia:
On the first day of June, 521 B-29s escorted by 148 P-51s were dispatched in a daylight raid against Osaka. While en route to the city the P-51D Mustangs flew through thick clouds, and 27 of the fighters were destroyed in collisions. Nevertheless, 458 heavy bombers and 27 P-51s reached the city
Everyone knows at least a little bit about the atomic bombings, but the pre-atomic air raids of Japan are really only remembered by history buffs these days, even though the major Japanese cities had been bombarded for months before Hiroshima, with vast sections devastated by incendiary and other bombs. The Japanese estimated that the firebombing of Tokyo alone killed 105,000 people in one night. That’s more than the first-day deaths at Hiroshima, and more than the total number of deaths attributed to the atomic bomb that hit Nagasaki.
That is an interesting group. The one that really startled me was number 11, “Mom and son watching atomic testing in 1953.” The idea of being able to see an atomic mushroom cloud from your home had never occurred to me. I wonder how many people alive to today have seen an above-ground atomic explosion, even at that distance? (I don’t know if Chernobyl counts, I don’t know if they decided there was an “atomic fizzle” there or not.)
I’ve read about people holding rooftop watch parties in Las Vegas, around 60 miles away from the Test Site.