Learn about key events in history and their connections to today.
On Aug. 9, 1945, three days after the bombing of Hiroshima, the United States dropped a second atomic bomb on the city of Nagasaki.
The New York Times article reported that the dropping of the bomb occurred at noon, Japanese time. It described Nagasaki as “an important industrial and shipping area with a population of about 258,000” and “a port for transshipment of military supplies and the embarkation of troops in support of Japan’s operations in China, Formosa, Southeast Asia, and the Southwest Pacific.”
In a section of the article titled “A Propaganda Front,” the Times article reports on Japan’s efforts, after the Aug. 6 bombing of Hiroshima, to influence public opinion in Europe and North America in the hope that it would stop the United States from dropping a second bomb.
Estimates suggest that the bomb killed 40,000 on the day it was dropped, and approximately 70,000 by the end of 1945.
The United States and Japan had been at war since Japanese forces bombed Pearl Harbor in December 1941. After the United States successfully detonated the world’s first atomic bomb in a July 1945 test, President Harry S. Truman and fellow Allied leaders, Josef Stalin and Clement Attlee, issued the Potsdam Declaration, an ultimatum for Japan to surrender unconditionally or face “prompt and utter destruction.”
When Japan refused to accept the terms on July 29, Truman authorized the use of the atomic bomb. On Aug. 6, the United States dropped an atomic bomb on the city of Hiroshima, destroying over 60 percent of the developed city and killing between 70,000 and 80,000.
Still, Japan refused to accept the terms of the Potsdam Declaration. On the morning of Aug. 9, the Soviet Union declared war on Japan, and then the United States dropped the bomb on Nagasaki.
After the bombing, Japan accepted the Potsdam terms and unconditionally surrendered to the United States on Aug. 14, a day known as Victory in Japan, or V-J, Day. It marked the end of World War II.
Connect to Today:
In a letter dated December 12, 1946, President Truman explained the basis for his decision to drop the atomic bombs on Japan:
I have no qualms about it whatever for the simple reason that it was believed that the dropping of not more than two of these bombs would bring the war to a close. The Japanese in their conduct of the war had been vicious and cruel savages and I came to the conclusion that if two hundred and fifty thousand young Americans could be saved from slaughter the bomb should be dropped, and it was … he cities on which the bombs were dropped were devoted almost exclusively to the manufacture of ammunition and weapons of destruction.
An October 2010 New York Times article on civilian casualties in Iraq reports that “Civilians have borne the brunt of modern warfare, with 10 civilians dying for every soldier in wars fought since the mid-20th century, compared with 9 soldiers killed for every civilian in World War I.”
When world leaders debate whether to enter into war, how should they balance their strategic goals with the seemingly inevitable civilian deaths that will result in the opposing country?