Nagasaki Bombing By US Ended The War, Anniversary Today August 9

On Friday, Nagasaki marked the 68th anniversary of the second atomic bombing of a Japanese city by the United States during World War II.

The first atomic bomb was dropped on the city of Hiroshima on Monday August 6 1945 and gave that city a sort of iconic status that persists to this day. Many younger people only know its name, and not that of Nagasaki, which was obliterated a few days later.

Indeed, it was the destruction of Nagasaki that caused the Japanese High Command to make the decision to end the war.

Today, people gathered at the Peace memorial park in Nagasaki to remember those people who died in the blast or from the after-effects in the months and years after.

The nuclear bombs which destroyed both Hiroshima and Nagasaki killed around 140,000 people instantly. There were more deaths later as people succumbed to their injuries and the effects of radiation.

It is an ironic quirk of history that the only country in the history of the world to suffer death and destruction from nuclear bombs chose to invest so much in harnessing nuclear power for peaceful use.

And now the Japanese find themselves under threat even from that use, with the story of the Fukushima plant disaster and the ongoing consequences.

Who could have believed that the Japanese would have such an attachment to nuclear power after the Hiroshima and Nagasaki bombings.

Photo Credit: news.yahoo.com