Hiroshima marks 81 years since the atomic bombing

On August 6, 1945, the United States dropped the first atomic bomb in human history on the historic Japanese city of Hiroshima. Today, Thursday (August 6), is the 81st anniversary of that horrific and tragic Hiroshima Day. Japan observed the day with due dignity, respect, and a call for a world free of nuclear weapons. On this day in 1945, the first of two atomic bombs developed under the top-secret Manhattan Project run by the United States—codenamed “The Little Boy”—was dropped on the city of Hiroshima.
This single bomb, dropped from an American B-29 bomber (Enol Gay), killed an estimated 90,000 to 140,000 people immediately and in the following months, most of whom were ordinary civilians. The massive blast wiped out an estimated 39 percent of the population of Hiroshima at the time. The entire city was reduced to rubble by nuclear radiation and a devastating fire.
A memorial service held at Hiroshima’s Peace Memorial Park to mark the day called on world leaders to abolish nuclear weapons and establish lasting peace. Three days after the atomic bomb was dropped on Hiroshima, the plutonium-239-based ‘Fat Man’ bomb was dropped on Nagasaki, Japan, on August 9, 1945.