Japan

This photo dated 1948 shows the devastated city of Hiroshima some three years after the US dropped an atomic bomb on the city on 6 August 1945, at the end of World War 2. Around 140,000 people, or more than half of Hiroshima's population at the time, died in the first atomic bombing – with another 70,000 people perishing in the bomb dropped over Nagasaki 9 August 1945. (Photo credit should read AFP/AFP/Getty Images)

Second World War

In pictures: the atomic bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki

Ministry Of Home Defence (Scientific Advisers' Branch), A view of the devastation caused by the atomic bomb that was dropped on Hiroshima in Japan on 6 August 1945. (Photo by IWM via Getty Images)

Second World War

The science behind the bombing of Hiroshima

A mushroom cloud produced by the explosion of a hydrogen bomb during Operation Ivy, an American nuclear test that took place in 1952. (SSPL/Getty Images)

How have nuclear weapons shaped global politics? 10 key moments in the post-war atomic world

Atomic bomb damage in the city of Hiroshima, 1945. The atomic bomb dropped on Hiroshima on 6 August 1945 “razed and burnt around 70 per cent of all buildings”, according to the International Campaign to Abolish Nuclear Weapons. (Photo by Hulton Archive/Getty Images)

Second World War

Was the US justified in dropping atomic bombs on Hiroshima and Nagasaki during the Second World War?

Swastika on a lotus background

Second World War

Why did Hitler choose the swastika, and how did a Sanskrit symbol become a Nazi emblem?

Postcards from the past competition

Postcards from the past: Aged between 6–13? Enter our exciting lockdown competition

Pearl Harbor attack

Second World War

America and WW2: when, how and why did the US get involved, and why they didn’t enter sooner?

US Army 7th Division's tanks equipped with flame throwers climbing a ridge on Okinawa. (Photo by W. Eugene Smith/The LIFE Picture Collection via Getty Images)

Second World War

Okinawa: the battle and the bomb

The US assault on Okinawa

Second World War

The WW2 battle of Okinawa: the bloodiest assault of the Pacific War

Illustration of Coronavirus SARS-CoV-2 (Covid-19). (Photo by Alamy)

Coronavirus: what might we learn from pandemics in the past?

Illustration of Coronavirus SARS-CoV-2 (Covid-19). (Photo by Alamy)

Coronavirus: a historical perspective

US marines advance up Iwo Jima's beaches

Second World War

The battle for Iwo Jima: why did it happen and why was it so hard fought?

German prisoners of war

Second World War

What would you have done? 6 terrible choices people had to make during the Second World War

The destroyer USS Shaw explodes in a massive fireball at Pearl Harbor, 7 December 1941. The attack led almost immediately to Germany declaring war on America, and so brought Stalin an unexpected ally of colossal potential power, says Laurence Rees. (Bettmann/Getty Images)

Second World War

Why December 1941 was the most important month of the Second World War

The battleship USS California following the attack at Pearl Harbor

Second World War

12 things you (probably) didn’t know about Pearl Harbor