alt Hacker NewsLet's minimise the digression, I'll move on happily enough ..
I'll note that it appears as if the events were framed to your class as two events predestined to have an excessive impact that deserved pause and consideration rather than as (in the context of contemporary events) two orthogonal weapon designs being field tested and squeezed into an already ongoing, months in the execution, campaign of systematic destruction of urban areas one after the other.
Eg: Was it stressed that had the Nagasaki bomb not been dropped the city would still have been destroyed to the same degree via heavy explosives and incendiaries?
Honestly, it's been a few decades and I don't recall many details (other than there being a lot of details). I don't remember if it was directly stated Nagasaki would have been destroyed with or without the A-bomb but I do recall reviewing a shocking analysis on the devastating results of fire-bombing Japanese cities and the escalating run-rate of civilian casualties as air superiority over Japan was established. I also remember seeing large estimates of U.S. troop and Japanese civilian casualties should the allies be forced to do a ground invasion city by city.
The allies had good reason to believe much of the Japanese population would fight block by block without a formal surrender by the Emperor and the Japanese ambassador had privately conveyed that the Japanese high-command would die in honor before surrendering in shame (which he sincerely believed). This was supported by the number of kamikaze pilots which seemed endless and continued to shock U.S. commanders.