The United States dropped two atomic bombs on Japanese cities in August 1945. Which two, and what were the dates?
The Hiroshima bomb (*Little Boy*, a uranium-235 gun-type weapon) detonated at 8:15 AM local time on 6 August 1945 and killed roughly 70,000–80,000 people instantly, with the death toll rising to perhaps 140,000 by the end of 1945 from injuries and radiation. The Nagasaki bomb (*Fat Man*, a plutonium implosion weapon) detonated on 9 August at 11:02 AM and killed perhaps 40,000–75,000 by year's end. Tokyo had been firebombed catastrophically in March 1945 (perhaps 100,000 dead) but was not nuclear. Kyoto was on the early atomic target list but was removed by Secretary of War Stimson, who had honeymooned there.
Read the full facts →World War II was a global war fought from 1939 to 1945 between the Axis powers (Germany, Japan, Italy, and others) and the Allied powers (the United Kingdom, the Soviet Union, the United States, China, and others). It killed 70–85 million people and is the deadliest conflict in human history.
Related questions
- On what date did World War II formally end in the Pacific?
- What event is conventionally regarded as the start of World War II in Europe?
- In August 1281 the largest seaborne invasion force assembled before D-Day sailed for Japan: 4,400 ships, 140,000 troops, sent by Kublai Khan after a failed first attempt seven years earlier. On the night of 15 August it was destroyed. By what?
- On 6 December 1917 the largest man-made explosion before the atomic bomb destroyed half of Halifax, Nova Scotia. The cause was?