Hiroshima was the first Japanese city struck by an atomic bomb in 1945.
The United States detonated the uranium-type bomb Little Boy over Hiroshima on August 6, 1945. The weapon was carried by the B-29 bomber Enola Gay, piloted by Colonel Paul Tibbets. Hiroshima was selected as a major military and industrial center with relatively little damage from earlier conventional bombing.
The explosion destroyed large parts of the city and caused enormous civilian casualties. Radiation sickness, burns, injuries, and later illnesses contributed to deaths for months afterward. Exact totals remain estimates because records were destroyed and many victims died later.
Nagasaki was attacked three days later, on August 9, with the plutonium bomb Fat Man. The two bombings occurred alongside the Soviet declaration of war and invasion of Manchuria. Together, these events intensified the crisis inside Japan's leadership before the surrender announcement on August 15.