On 6 August 1945, the United States dropped the first atomic bomb in history on the Japanese city of Hiroshima, marking a turning point in the Second World War and a moment that changed global history forever.
The bomb, codenamed Little Boy, was released from the American B-29 bomber Enola Gay at 8:15am local time. It detonated approximately 600 metres above the city, unleashing an explosion equivalent to about 15,000 tonnes of TNT. The blast levelled most of Hiroshima in seconds.
An estimated 70,000- 80,000 people were killed instantly, with tens of thousands more dying in the following weeks and months from burns, radiation sickness, and injuries. By the end of 1945, the death toll is believed to have reached around 140,000.
Three days later, on 9 August 1945, a second atomic bomb, Fat Man, was dropped on Nagasaki. These bombings, combined with the Soviet Union’s declaration of war on Japan, led to Japan’s surrender on 15 August 1945, ending the Second World War.
However, historians continue to debate whether the atomic bombings truly ended the war, or whether Japan was already on the brink of surrender. The decision remains one of the most controversial in modern history- supporters argue the bombings brought a swift end, avoiding a costly invasion, while critics point to the scale of civilian suffering and question whether the use of such a weapon was necessary.
The unprecedented devastation also transformed global politics. The atomic bomb was unlike anything seen before, and its use ushered in the nuclear age. In the years that followed, an arms race began as more countries- including the Soviet Union, the UK, France, China, and others- developed their own nuclear weapons. This created the doctrine of “mutually assured destruction” during the Cold War, a tense balance in which the horror of nuclear war itself became a deterrent.
Eighty years later, the nuclear question remains divisive. In Hiroshima on Wednesday morning, a silent prayer marked the anniversary, attended by Japanese prime minister Shigeru Ishiba, the city’s mayor Kazumi Matsui, and officials from around the world. Matsui warned of a global “accelerating trend toward military build-up… [and] the idea that nuclear weapons are essential for national defence,” calling it a “flagrant disregard [of] the lessons the international community should have learned from the tragedies of history.”
Survivors- known as hibakusha– continue to speak out. Shingo Naito, who was six when the bomb fell and he lost his father and two siblings, recalled: “My father was badly burned and blinded by the blast. His skin was hanging from his body- he couldn’t even hold my hand.” He has been sharing his story with students to turn his memories into art.
In 2024, Nihon Hidankyo, a Japanese group of atomic bomb survivors, was awarded the Nobel Peace Prize for its decades-long campaign to eliminate nuclear weapons. Yet nuclear disarmament efforts remain fragile.
In 2025, Trump has been nominated twice for the same prize: the leader of the country that first developed and used nuclear weapons. The juxtaposition is striking; it underscores not only how little the world has learned from history, but also how divided we remain on what lesson we are supposed to take from it.
Mayor Matsui warned that the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty is “on the brink of dysfunctionality” and urged Japan to ratify the Treaty on the Prohibition of Nuclear Weapons, a step the Japanese government has resisted, arguing that its security is tied to the US nuclear umbrella.
This tension highlights a deeper contradiction: nations that developed and used the bomb still shape the global nuclear order. While survivor groups are honoured for their work, political leaders in nuclear states continue to see nuclear arsenals as central to national strategy.
As the world marks 80 years since Hiroshima, memorials serve not just to remember the dead, but to question whether the lessons of history have truly been learned.
Later he will say
that the whole blooming sky
went up like an apricot ice.
Later he will laugh and tremble
at such a surrender, for the eye
of his belly saw Marilyn’s skirts
fly over her head for ever.
— Alison Fell, “August 6, 1945”
Also read: Hiroshima and Nagasaki bombings remembered 80 years on
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