On August 6, 1945, US B-29 aircraft the Enola Gay unleashed unprecedented power when it dropped the world’s first atomic bomb, “Little Boy” on the Japanese city of Hiroshima.
Three days later, the US dropped a second nuclear bomb on the city of Nagasaki.
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The bombings caused unrivalled destruction and killed at least 129,000 people.
Days later, Japan surrendered and World War II was over.
The bombings remain the only use of nuclear weapons for warfare in history.
An excerpt of former US president Harry Truman’s announcement that the US had dropped an atomic bomb for the first time in history is shown in this video below (via Youtube).
Truman starts:
“A short time ago, an American aeroplane dropped one bomb on Hiroshima and destroyed its usefulness to the enemy.
“That bomb has more power than 20,000 tonnes of TNT.
“The Japanese began the war from Pearl Harbor. They have been repaid many fold and the end is not yet.
“With this bomb we have added a new and revolutionary increase in destruction to supplement the growing power of our armed forces…”
