It has been 70 years since one of the greatest devastations of the 20th century. By the end of World War II, the United States was willing to do just about anything to end the brutal war. Just two years into the war, the U.S. had already begun gathering its best minds to begin the construction of nuclear weapons in a clandestine program famously coined “The Manhattan Project.” Thus, the Atomic Age began.
The first ever uranium bomb was dropped as a test in Alamogordo, New Mexico, on July 16, 1945. Less than a month following its success, a B-29 bomber by the name of “Enola Gay” released “Little Boy” onto the city of Hiroshima, Japan. U.S. saw Hiroshima, a vital army storage center and industrial port of 350,000 civilians at the time, as a reputable target. Just three days following the bombing of Hiroshima, a second plane nicknamed “Bock’s Car” launched a hydrogen bomb named “Fat Man” onto the second Japanese city of Nagasaki. The city was actually a backup action to the initial target city of Kokura, which was shrouded in clouds that day.
[According to the BBC](http://www.bbc.co.uk/history/ww2peopleswar/timeline/factfiles/nonflash/a6652262.shtml), “Little Boy” took the lives of about 70,000 natives as well as leaving 140,000 others injured and homeless. “Fat Man” demolished the lives of 42,000 people while another 40,000 were left injured. Several industries were crushed, with 60,000 of Hiroshima’s 90,000 buildings destroyed and 39 percent of Nagasaki’s standing buildings defeated. It is estimated that at least 20 percent of lives were taken from the effects of radiation and infamous “black rain.”
With a nation facing a personal apocalypse, Japan formally surrendered to the Allies on Sept. 2, 1945, officially ending World War II. President Harry S. Truman declared the date to be “Victory Over Japan Day” or VJ Day.
Today’s mayor of Hiroshima, Kazumi Matsui, encouraged President Barack Obama and other world leaders to visit the sites of atomic bombings at the Aug. 6 anniversary event. In remembrance of the tragedy, Prime Minister Shinzo Abe, spoke out at the Hiroshima Peace Memorial Park in 2015 of creating a world free of nuclear weapons. In Japan’s name, Abe said in his address that he hopes to “continue our effort to achieve a world without nuclear weapons” and that it “is our responsibility and our duty.” Decades later, the people of Japan and the world still remember the devastation weapons like this can cause.
Today, the city is, in Abe’s own words, an “international city of peace and culture.” Japan’s effort at harnessing peace will be implemented in a new draft resolution to eliminate nuclear weapons that will be shared at the United Nations General Assembly this fall. The attitude and transformation of a shattered community into a blossoming city of over 1 million residents today is nothing short of admirable, as are the steps taken toward ultimate peace.
The time to fully banish atomic weaponry is now. Not only do they result in mass destruction with the firepower to millions of people, they also horribly affect the planet. Discovered in the 1980s, Russian and U.S. scientists theorized the potential of a “nuclear winter” which is the result of a blackened sky caused from atomic explosions. The explosions can also send summer temperatures plummeting to below freezing or immediate global cooling killing any chance of crop survival. Nuclear bombs were created for the purpose of mass destruction, and they should be eliminated for the purpose of peace.
