On August 6, 1945, during World War II (1939-45), an American B-29 bomber dropped the world’s first deployed atomic bomb over the Japanese city of Hiroshima. The explosion wiped out 90 percent of the city and immediately killed 80,000 people; tens of thousands more would later die of radiation exposure.
Three days later, a second B-29 dropped another A-bomb on Nagasaki, killing an estimated 40,000 people. Japan’s Emperor Hirohito announced his country’s unconditional surrender in World War II in a radio address on August 15, citing the devastating power of “a new and most cruel bomb.”
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Urakami Cathedral (Roman Catholic), Nagasaki, September, 1945. |
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Nagasaki, September, 1945. |
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Hiroshima streetcar, September, 1945. |
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A photo album, pieces of pottery, a pair of scissors — shards of life strewn on the ground in Nagasaki, 1945. |
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Hiroshima, 1945. |
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Nagasaki, 1945, a few months after an American B-29 dropped an atomic bomb, codenamed "Fat Man," on the city. |
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The landscape around Urakami Cathedral, Nagasaki, September, 1945. |
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Neighborhood reduced to rubble by atomic bomb blast, Hiroshima, 1945. |
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Nagasaki, Japan, September 1945. |
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Bust in front of destroyed cathedral two miles from the atomic bomb detonation site, Nagasaki, Japan, 1945. |
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Hiroshima, 1945, two months after the August 6 bombing. |
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Nagasaki, 1945. |
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Two women pay respects at a ruined cemetery, Nagasaki, 1945. |
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Hiroshima, September, 1945. |
(Photos by Bernard Hoffman—Time & Life Pictures/Getty Images)