Three days later, another atomic bomb was dropped on the Japanese city Nagasaki, instantly killing a further 40,000 people.
Tens of thousands more would later die of radiation exposure. It was the first time a nuclear weapon had been deployed in warfare and the bomb immediately killed 80,000 people. On August 6 1945, an American B-29 bomber dubbed Enola Gay dropped an atomic bomb on the Japanese city of Hiroshima.