On this day, August 9, in 1945

During WWII, the US military detonated the nuclear bomb ‘fat man’ over the Japanese city of Nagasaki, only 3 days after dropping the bomb that devastated Hiroshima. The Nagasaki bombing had an estimated 74,000 casualties, almost all of who were civilian. The US had warned Japan that it would face the full force of the United States if it didn’t surrender, but the enormous size of these attacks was still unexpected. At that time most of the world including Japan had no knowledge that the US, under its secret Manhattan Project, was researching and producing nuclear weapons. Japan has sought the global abolition of nuclear weapons ever since, a commitment rooted in the trauma and suffering caused by the bombing.