Hiroshima Bombing Facts

Hiroshima Bombing Facts
On August 6th, 1945, the United States Air Force dropped the first deployed atomic bomb in history on Hiroshima, a Japanese city. The bombing took place towards the end of World War II, and was the first of two atomic bomb attacks on Japan that lead to the country's surrender. Nazi Germany surrendered to the Allied Forces on May 8th, 1945, but the Japanese refused and the Pacific War continued. The U.S., China, and the United Kingdom called for Japan's surrender on July 26th, 1945 but were ignored. On August 6th the U.S proceeded to drop the atomic bomb named Little Boy on Hiroshima, Japan, killing between 70,000 and 146,000 civilians and more than 20,000 soldiers.
Interesting Hiroshima Bombing Facts:
The nuclear bomb called Little Man that was dropped on Hiroshima was the first atomic bomb used in combat in history.
What makes nuclear bombs so scary is that they are capable of causing incredible damage and suffering, and could wipe out the entire world if a nuclear war began.
Prior to dropping the atomic bombs in Japan the U.S. dropped leaflets to warn citizens to leave the target areas.
The nuclear bomb dropped on Hiroshima was made of 141 pounds of enriched Uranium-235. The bomb dropped a few days later on Nagasaki was 8kg of Plutonium-239. These served as tests for the U.S. military to determine the more effective bomb for use in the future.
When Little Boy exploded most of the uranium had been blown apart. What was left weighed less than a $1 bill. It killed more than 80,000 people immediately.
The bomb went through its final assembly in the air to avoid killing the U.S. soldiers on Tinian, an island in the Pacific where the plane carrying the bomb was taking off from.
The color of the clothing people were wearing affected how they were burned from the thermal radiation. White reflected the radiation and black absorbed it, and for those who survived, they had bizarre burn patterns.
It is estimated that more than 60,000 buildings were destroyed in the blast. 90% of the city was destroyed.
After the initial deaths of approximately 80,000, tens of thousands more continued die from radiation exposure with final death tolls being almost 200,000 from this one bomb alone.
The bomb was exploded 2000 feet above Hiroshima, and destroyed five square miles immediately.
Godzilla was created 10 years after the bombings in Hiroshima and Nagasaki, believed to be a metaphor for nuclear bombs and weapons.
The plane that carried the atomic bomb to Hiroshima was called the Enola Gay.
A man named Tsutomu Yamaguchi survived both atomic bomb blasts and lived to 93. He was the only one known to survive both. He died in 2010.
One of the pilots of the Enola Gay met survivors 10 years later on a U.S. television show.
The atomic bomb dropped on Hiroshima did not result in Japan's surrender. It took the dropping of another atomic bomb on Nagasaki called Fat Man, on August 9th, to cause Japan to surrender.
Some historians believe that it wasn't the two atomic bombs that caused Japan to surrender, but instead it was the entrance of the Soviet Union into the war against Japan.


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