caption death_date death_place birth_place citizenship article_title name birth_date image employer birth_name
laurence bombings of hiroshima and nagasaki . on the island of tinian before the atomic 19 march 1977 majorca , spain salantai , lithuania -lrb- then russian empire -rrb- united states -lrb- naturalized 1913 -rrb- william l. laurence
 william leonard laurence 7 march 1888 william laurence - cropped.jpg '' the new york times '' leib wolf siew
william l. laurence

william leonard laurence -lrb- march 7 , 1888 -- march 19 , 1977 -rrb- was a jewish lithuanian-born american journalist known for his science journalism writing of the 1940s and 1950s while working for `` the new york times '' .
he won two pulitzer prizes and , as the official historian of the manhattan project , was the only journalist to witness the trinity test and the atomic bombing of nagasaki .
he is credited with coining the iconic term `` atomic age '' which became popular in the 1950s .
