After years of war, US military leaders came to believe that the Japanese military would literally fight to the last man. Although Axis forces were already defeated in Europe and Japan was losing on their front, many US officials believed that bringing an absolute end to the war with Japan was going to be a long and bloody ordeal.

When presented with the new Atomic option they reasoned that the loss of 2-300,000 people in Japanese cities would be measurably fewer lives lost than the continuation of the War. (We must remember that this was prior to the advent of smart weaponry, and that entire cities would be fire-bombed prior to invasion and hand to hand combat in trenches. War was hell.)
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This US Google Maps view claims to be an underground nuclear test site.

I kind of doubt it because it’s like 50 miles from Vegas. Still, even if it isn’t, it’s a pretty cool impact of some sort. Notice that according to the Google Map scale it is almost 800 feet in diameter. Whatever it was, it took quite a wallop to make that crater.