Hiroshima

On this date in 1945, the United States dropped the first atomic bomb used in combat on the Japanese city of Hiroshima, causing possibly as many as 80,000 deaths, with thousands more later from radiation and other illnesses. While many still debate the morality of the use of the atomic bombs on Hiroshima and Nagasaki, there is no doubt that, had the Japanese not surrendered following the dropping of the bombs, the Allied invasion of Japan, scheduled to begin on November 1, 1945, would have likely caused millions of casualties on both sides before Japan would have capitulated.