August 6 - Atomic Bomb Dropped on Hiroshima

This Day in History: 6 August 2020

 

6 August 1945

 

75 years ago, today, the United States dropped the first atomic bomb in wartime on the Japanese city of Hiroshima. Around 80,000 people were killed as a direct result of the blast, and another 35,000 were injured. By the end of the year, 60,000 would be dead from the effects of the fallout. The United States had been working on atomic weaponry since the beginning of the decade, after being warned that Nazi Germany was already conducting research into nuclear weapons. However, by the time the United States conducted the first successful test, Germany had already been defeated, but the war against Japan continued to rage.

 

The atomic bomb dropped on Hiroshima immediately killed 80,000 people and thousands more would die from radiation poisoning in the following weeks. Three days later, another bomb was dropped on the city of Nagasaki, killing nearly 40,000 more people, leading to Japan's surrender. Historians have suggested the weapons had a two-pronged objective. First was to bring the war with Japan to a fast end, while sparing American lives. It has been also suggested that the second objective was to demonstrate the new weapon of mass destruction to the world, especially to the Soviet Union.

 

Want to find out more about the atomic bomb attack on Hiroshima? Click here for more information, or here for more on how the event initiated the Cold War.