On August 6, 1945, the United States becomes the first and only nation to use atomic weapons during wartime when it drops an atomic bomb on the Japanese city of Hiroshima. Approximately 80,000 people are killed as a direct result of the blast, and some 35,000 are seriously injured. At least another 60,000 would be dead by the end of the year from the effects of the radioactive fallout.

Though the dropping of the atomic bomb on Japan marked the end of World War II, many historians argue that it also ignited the Cold War.