100 Interesting Facts About Hiroshima and Nagasaki

Ranald Macdonald a Chinook/Scottish man, ventured to Japan despite knowing of the strict isolationist policy. He pretended to shipwreck on an island, where he was caught and sent to Nagasaki. There, he managed to convince the Daimyo that he could be of value as Japan’s first English teacher.

52. The US aircrew that atom-bombed Nagasaki took a tour of the nuked city a month later and spoke to local Japanese but kept who they were a secret.

53. Japan didn’t surrender World War II under false assumptions. The US actually had seven more atomic bombs, the first of which was to be ready within ten days of the Nagasaki bombing.

54. During the atomic bombing of Nagasaki, a 16-year-old boy (Sumiteru Taniguchi) survived being 1800 meters away from the center of the blast, and after recovered from severe burns.

55. The Japanese city Kokura was the primary target for the "Fat Man" bomb on August 9, 1945, but on the morning of the raid, the city was obscured by clouds and the mission commander diverted to the secondary target, Nagasaki.

On December 7, 1963, 22 years after Pearl Harbor, a Japanese court ruled that the atomic bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki were, in fact, war crimes, but that Japan had waived its right to pursue the matter under the terms of the Treaty of San Francisco.

57. The comet that killed the dinosaurs 65 million years ago was the equivalent to released as much energy as 100 trillion tons of TNT, more than a billion times more than the atom bombs that destroyed Hiroshima and Nagasaki.

58. An American POW named Joe Kieyoomia not only survived the Bataan death march but also the Nagasaki atomic blast

59. In 1976, a Princeton student named John Aristotle Phillips successfully designed a nuclear weapon similar to the Nagasaki bomb for his physics term paper. The paper was classified by the US Government.

60. The Atomic Bombs dropped on Hiroshima and Nagasaki during World War 2, used Uranium from the Congo, Africa.

On August 9th, 1945, a B-29 bomber left the island of Tinian intending to drop a plutonium bomb on the city of Kokura. On arriving at the target, the plane found it obscured by clouds. It turned south and went to its secondary target: Nagasaki.

62. Many women near ground zero at Hiroshima and Nagasaki gave birth to disabled children with small heads (microcephaly)

63. Larry Johnston was the only man to witness all three atomic explosions in 1945: the Trinity nuclear test and the atomic bombing of Hiroshima and Nagasaki.

64. A High School in Washington State (Where Fuel for Fatman and Littleboy Was Made) Adopted an Atomic Bomb as Mascot After Learning that Japan had Surrendered Following the Bombing of Hiroshima and Nagasaki. "We are proud of...what our part was in ending the war." School motto: "Nuke 'em"

65. The most lethal bombing (Dresden bombing) of WWII was neither Hiroshima or Nagasaki, but the firebombing of Dresden, Germany, which killed as many as 135,000 people

Before dropping the atomic bombs on Hiroshima and Nagasaki, the US dropped 49 practice bombs nicknamed "pumpkin bombs" that killed 400 and injured 1,200

67. Hibakusha is the Japanese word for the surviving victims of the 1945 atomic bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki. The word literally translates as "explosion-affected people" and is used, often derogatorily, to refer to people who were exposed to radiation from the bombings

68. Takashi Nagai, a Japanese radiologist who treated the wounded of Nagasaki in spite of having had one of his right temporal artery severed. Later in life, he was visited by an emissary of the Pope, Emperor Hirohito, and even Helen Keller.

69. On May 16th, 1945, Nazi submarine U-234 surrendered in NH. It had been bound for Tokyo with 10 containers of uranium oxide. The atomic material ended up in the bombs dropped on Hiroshima and Nagasaki.

70. Irish doctor Aidan MacCarthy joined British forces in 1938 and chose the RAF on a coin toss by a barwoman. He treated men while under fire at Dunkirk, was captured in Sumatra, transported to Nagasaki, survived the blast of the atomic bomb, and accepted the surrender of the POW camp commandant.

Kakure Krishitans (Hidden Christians), whose faith was persecuted for centuries in Japan, finally came out of hiding to construct and finish their cathedral in 1925 at a location only 500 meters from the detonation of the atomic bomb over Nagasaki in 1945

72. The 3rd largest explosion (Tutbury explosion) during WW2, ranking only behind Hiroshima and Nagasaki, occurred in the insignificant village of Tutbury in the UK.

73. In 1968, a 6.9 earthquake struck the small town of Meckering, Australia, completely destroying the town. The quake released the energy equivalent to 10 Hiroshima-type atomic bombs

74. Zeppo Marx owned a company that produced the clamps that held 'Fat Man', the atomic bomb dropped on Nagasaki.

75. In preparation for Operation Downfall (the invasion of Japan if they decided not to surrender after the bombing of Hiroshima and Nagasaki) the US manufactured 400,000 Purple Heart medals for anticipated casualties and over 120,000 of the original stock is still available.