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Today (August 6,1945), marks the 75th years that the US bombed Hiroshima in Japan leading to the death of more than 140 persons.
What happened in 1945?
Germany surrendered to Allied forces in May 1945, but World War Two continued in Asia as the Allies fought imperial Japan.
The United States believed that dropping a nuclear bomb – after Tokyo rejected an earlier ultimatum for peace – would force a quick surrender without risking US casualties on the ground.
On 6 August, the US dropped the first bomb – codenamed Little Boy – on Hiroshima. The attack was the first time a nuclear weapon was used during a war.
At least 70,000 people are believed to have been killed immediately in the massive blast which flattened the city. Tens of thousands more died of injuries caused by radiation poisoning in the following days, weeks and months.
The forgotten mine that built the atomic bomb
What happened in Hiroshima?
Where are the world’s nuclear weapons?
When no immediate surrender came from the Japanese, another bomb, dubbed “Fat Man”, was dropped three days later about 420 kilometres (261 miles) to the south over Nagasaki.
The recorded death tolls are estimates, but it is thought that about 140,000 of Hiroshima’s 350,000 population were killed, and that at least 74,000 people died in Nagasaki.
They are the only two nuclear bombs ever to have been deployed outside testing. The dual bombings brought about an abrupt end to the war in Asia, with Japan surrendering to the Allies on 14 August 1945.
Source: BBC.
