
Everything changed in an instant. One moment, it was a warm summer’s day with a few clouds in the sky. The next, a brilliant flash of light blinded everyone and altered the course of history.
On August 6, 1945, the world entered the nuclear age with the detonation of the first atomic bomb in warfare over Hiroshima, Japan.
“There was a 10,000-degree flash of intense light,” says historian Richard Rhodes, who received the Pulitzer Prize in 1986 for his book The Making of the Atomic Bomb. “It was like a gigantic sunburn over the entire area. Then there was a flush of neutrons from the fireball that followed, and that was the primary killing mechanism.”
Thousands of Japanese died immediately following the detonation of Little Boy, the nickname of that first atomic bomb. Some were vaporized by the initial blast; others were charred beyond recognition by the incredible heat. All told, at least 100,000 people died from the explosion and resulting firestorm that leveled a four-square-mile section of Hiroshima.