On this day in 1945, at 8:16 a.m. Japanese time, an American B-29 bomber, the Enola Gay, drops the world's first atom bomb, over the city of Hiroshima. Approximately 80,000 people are killed as a direct result of the blast, and another 35,000 are injured. At least another 60,000 would be dead by the end of the year from the effects of the fallout.
why us drop atomic boom on japan
The USA was facing the prospect of invading Japan to subdue it. The last few battles, Iwo Jima and Okinawa particularly, were incomprehensibly bloody. Japan had no regard for its own citizens' lives and planned to turn their whole island into a fortress. It was estimated that casualties would be 1 million Americans and half a million British in the first invasion alone. Some cynics say we used it to scare Stalin as well, but the fact remains that they ignored an ultimatum on 27 July 1945 after enduring the worst conventional bombs could do. A powerful argument remains that the Bomb saved allied and Japanese lives
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