Hiroshima was the first Japanese city destroyed by an atomic bomb in World War II.
The United States dropped the uranium gun-type weapon Little Boy on Hiroshima on August 6, 1945. The bomb was carried by the B-29 Enola Gay, piloted by Colonel Paul Tibbets. The explosion devastated the city and caused enormous civilian casualties, with many additional deaths occurring later from injuries and radiation effects.
Hiroshima had been selected because it was an important military and communications center and had largely avoided earlier conventional bombing. Its relatively intact condition also made it useful for assessing the bomb’s destructive impact.
The bombing did not produce an immediate Japanese surrender. Japan’s leaders continued debating their response, while the Soviet Union entered the war and the United States bombed Nagasaki. Emperor Hirohito later cited the new weapon as one reason for accepting the Allied terms.