HIROSHIMA - JAPAN August 1945

During the final stages of
World War II in 1945, the UnitedStates conducted two atomic bombings against the cities of Hiroshima and Nagasaki in Japan. These two events are the only use of nuclear weapons in war to date. Following a firebombing campaign that destroyed manyJapanese cities, the Allies prepared for a costly invasion of Japan. The war in Europe ended when Nazi Germany signed its instrument of surrender on 8 May, but the Pacific War continued. Together with the United Kingdom and the Republic ofChina, the United States called for a surrender of Japan in the Potsdam Declaration on 26 July 1945, threateningJapan with "prompt and utter destruction". The Japanesegovernment ignored this ultimatum, and the United States deployed two nuclear weapons developed by theManhattan Project. American soldiers dropped Little Boy on the city of Hiroshima on 6 August 1945, followed by Fat Man over Nagasaki on 9 August.

Within the first two to
four months of the bombings, the acute effects killed 90,000–166,000 people in Hiroshima and 60,000–80,000 in Nagasaki On 15 August, six days after the bombing of Nagasaki, Japan announced its surrender to the Allies,signing the Instrument of Surrender on 2 September, officially ending World War II. The bombings led, in part, topost-war Japans adopting Three Non- Nuclear Principles, forbidding the nation from nuclear armament.

•The Hiroshima explosion, recorded at8:15am,
August 6, 1945, is seen on the remains of a wristwatch foundin the ruins in this 1945 United Nations photo.

U.S. President Harry Truman, left,
back from the Potsdam conference, is shown at his White House desk with Secretary of War Henry L. Stimson inWashington, D.C., Aug. 8, 1945. They discuss the atomic bomb that was dropped on Hiroshima, Japan.

Nagasaki Type Bomb: This is
the type of atomic bomb exploded over Nagasaki, Japan, in World War II, the Atomic Energy Commission and Defense Department said in releasing this photo in Washington, December 6, 1960. The weapon, known as the "Fat Man" type, is 60 inches in diameter and 128 inches long. The second nuclear weapon to be detonated, it weighed about 10,000 pounds and had a yield equivalent to approximately 20,000 tons of high explosive.

A massive column of billowing
smoke, thousands of feet high, mushrooms over the city of Nagasaki, Japan, after an atomic bomb was dropped by the United States on Aug. 9, 1945.A B-29 plane delivered theblast killing approximately 70,000 people, with thousands dying later of radiation effects. The attack came three daysafter the U.S. dropped theworlds first atomic bomb on the Japanese city of Hiroshima.

This young man, a victim
of the second atomic bomb ever used in warfare, is seen as he is lying sick on a mat, in Nagasaki, in late 1945. The bombing killed more than 70,000 people instantly, with ten thousands dying later from effects of the radioactive fallout.

Maj. Thomas Ferebee, left, of
Mocksville, N.C., and Capt. Kermit Beahan, right, of Houston, Texas, talk at a hotel in Washington, D.C., on Feb. 6, 1946. Ferebee dropped the atomic bomb over Hiroshima, and Beahan dropped the bomb over Nagasaki.

Commanding officer and pilot Col.
Paul W.Tibbets Jr. waves from the cockpit of his bomber plane at its base in Tinian, on August6, 1945, shortly before take-off to drop thefirst atomic bomb overHiroshima, Japan. The day before Tibbets named the B-29Superfortress after his mother "Enola Gay."

General Douglas MacArthur signs as
Supreme Allied Commander during formal surrenderceremonies on the USS MISSOURI in Tokyo Bay. Behind General MacArthur are Lieutenant General Jonathan Wainwright and Lieutenant General A. E. Percival. 2. September 1945

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PRÄSENTATION, INSBESONDERE AUF BEARBEITUNG UND UMGESTALTUNG LIEGEN BEIM AUTOR… K & H - PPS Fotos: AP/United Nations,APMusic: : Wishful Thinking Hiroshima http://www.slideshare.net/karinchen51