Hiroshima was hit by the first atomic bomb used in war in 1945.
The United States dropped the uranium bomb known as Little Boy over Hiroshima on August 6, 1945. The bomb detonated at 8:15 a.m. local time, destroying much of the city and causing enormous civilian casualties. Hiroshima was an important military and industrial center, but the attack also devastated residential neighborhoods.
Three days later, the United States dropped a second atomic bomb on Nagasaki. The two attacks, combined with the Soviet Union’s entry into the war against Japan, intensified pressure on the Japanese government to accept the Potsdam Declaration. Emperor Hirohito announced Japan’s surrender on August 15.
Hiroshima is sometimes confused with Nagasaki because both cities were atomic-bomb targets in the same week. Hiroshima was first; Nagasaki was second. The bombings remain among the most consequential and debated events of the twentieth century, and Hiroshima is now an international symbol of the human consequences of nuclear war.