Atomic bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki

In the final weeks of the Second World War, the United States dropped atomic bombs on the Japanese cities of Hiroshima and, three days later, Nagasaki. The first bomb was carried by the B-29 Enola Gay, and the second by Bockscar. Together the bombings killed well over a hundred thousand people, most of them civilians, by the end of 1945, and many more later died of radiation sickness and cancer. The Soviet Union declared war on Japan between the two attacks, and Japan announced its surrender on 15 August. Historians still debate whether the bombings were necessary to end the war, and the survivors, known as hibakusha, became leading advocates for nuclear disarmament.

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