Finally, at noon on August 15, Emperor Hirohito announced the surrender of Japan. A second atomic bomb was dropped three days later on the city of Nagasaki. ĭespite the terrible aftermath, the Japanese government did not surrender.
The unspeakable suffering of the victims inspired the accounts of six victims in the book “Hiroshima,” originally printed in a single edition of the New Yorker magazine. Department of Defense/Department of the Air Force/Handout via REUTERS/File PhotoĮstimates of the instant deaths were 90,000, but the resulting fires and lingering deaths extended to an approximate 135,000 people. Some historians have argued that the bombs were also a display of force intended to check the the Soviet Union.ĭevastation is seen in the vicinity of ‘ground zero’ after the atomic bombing of Hiroshima, Japan in an undated photograph.
In his decision to attack with nuclear weapons, President Truman cited the push of the Japanese military in the Pacific during the previous three months that had caused overwhelming American military deaths. The United States had offered a surrender, the “Potsdam Declaration,” promising the Japanese an immediate and devastating attack if surrender was refused. Summary: Seventy-five years ago, on August 6, 1945, an American B-29 bomber dropped the first atomic bomb on the city of Hiroshima, Japan. presidents have the sole authority to launch a nuclear attack? You may wish to stop the video at 2m:22s, for the sake of time. Credit Kyodo/via REUTERS.ĭirections: Watch the NewsHour video above with your students and read the article below (click here for transcript). Japan’s Prime Minister Shinzo Abe wearing a protective face mask, offers a wreath to the cenotaph for the victims of the 1945 atomic bombing, at Peace Memorial Park in Hiroshima, western Japan, August 6, 2020, on the 75th anniversary of the atomic bombing of the city.
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