Hiroshima

Atomic bomb damage in the city of Hiroshima, 1945

Second World War

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

Scientists Frederic Joliot-Curie and his wife, Irene, at work in their Paris laboratory in December 1932. The couple were among a wide-ranging group of scientists whose work paved the way for the atomic bomb. (Photo by Keystone-France/Gamma-Keystone via Getty Images)

Second World War

Hiroshima: the race to the atomic bomb

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

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11 shocking moments in history

Ruins of Hiroshima shortly after the dropping of the atomic bomb. (US Air Force/The LIFE Picture Collection/Getty Images)

Second World War

Timeline: the countdown to the atomic bombing of Hiroshima