Nuclear weapons were first used in the Second World War. Two bombs were dropped on the Japanese cities of Nagasaki and Hiroshima, killing hundreds of thousands of people.
On August 6, 1945, the United States dropped an atomic bomb on the Japanese city of Hiroshima. It killed or wounded nearly 130,000 people. Three days later, the United States bombed Nagasaki. Of the 286,00 people living there at the time of the blast, 74,000 were killed and another 75,000 sustained severe injuries. Japan agreed to an unconditional surrender on August 14, 1945; it also resulted in the end of World War II. Scientists at Los Alamos had developed two distinct types of atomic bombs by 1945—a uranium-based design called “the Little Boy” and a plutonium-based weapon called “the Fat Man.”
While the war in Europe had ended in April, fighting in the Pacific continued between Japanese forces and U.S. troops. In late July, President Harry Truman called for Japan’s surrender with the Potsdam Declaration. The declaration promised “prompt and utter destruction” if Japan did not surrender.
On August 6, 1945, the United States dropped its first atomic bomb from a B-29 bomber plane called the Enola Gay over the city of Hiroshima, Japan. The “Little Boy” exploded with about 13 kilotons of force, leveling five square miles of the city and killing 80,000 people instantly. Tens of thousands more would later die from radiation exposure.
When the Japanese did not immediately surrender, the United States dropped a second atomic bomb three days later on the city of Nagasaki. The “Fat Man” killed an estimated 40,000 people on impact.
Nagasaki had not been the primary target for the second bomb. American bombers initially had targeted the city of Kokura, where Japan had one of its largest munitions plants, but smoke from firebombing raids obscured the sky over Kokura. American planes then turned toward their secondary target, Nagasaki.
Citing the devastating power of “a new and most cruel bomb,” Japanese Emperor Hirohito announced his country’s surrender on August 15—a day that became known as ‘V-J Day’—ending World War II.
In subsequent years, the United States, the Soviet Union and Great Britain conducted several nuclear weapons tests. In 1954, President Jawaharlal Nehru of India called for a ban on nuclear testing. It was the first large-scale initiative to ban using nuclear technology for mass destruction.
In 1958, nearly 10,000 scientists presented to United Nations Secretary-General Dag Hammarskjold a petition that begged, “We deem it imperative that immediate action be taken to effect an international agreement to stop testing of all nuclear weapons.”
France exploded its first nuclear device in 1960 and China entered the “nuclear arms club” in October 1964 when it conducted its first test. The United States, Soviet Union and some sixty other countries signed a treaty to seek the ends of the nuclear arms race and promote disarmament on July 1, 1968. The treaty bars nuclear weapons states from propagating weapons to other states and prohibits states without nuclear weapons to develop or acquire nuclear arsenal. It permits the use of nuclear energy for peaceful purposes. It entered into force in 1970 and was extended indefinitely and unconditionally on May 11, 1995.
In 1974, India conducted its first nuclear test: a subterranean explosion of a nuclear device (not weapon). India declared it to be a “peaceful” test, but it announced to the world that India had the scientific know-how to build a bomb.
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