The most powerful weapon to ever be used against other humans was detonated by the United States in Japan 75 years ago.
On August 6, 1945, a B-29 bomber famously known as the Enola Gay dropped an atomic bomb on Hiroshima, marking the first of two times the bomb has ever been used in warfare.
The death toll itself was mind-boggling. As many as 140,000 people ultimately died from the blast, but not all perished immediately. The residual health issues caused by intense radioactive fallout claimed thousands of lives in the months and years afterwards as well.
The city was leveled – less than 10 percent of the buildings in Hiroshima were left undamaged by the bomb, according to the U.S. Department of Energy.
Days later, on August 9, 1945, the U.S. dropped another atomic bomb on Nagasaki, putting Japan on the brink of surrender.
The atomic bombings effectively ended WWII, but they have since served as a brutal lesson about the dangers of nuclear warfare. Three-quarters of a century later, tensions over nuclear weapons and how to ensure they are not used again are still very much with us.
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