A blinding light like thousands of strobe lights—that's how Toshiko Tanaka described the morning, 80 years ago today, the United States dropped an atomic bomb on Hiroshima.

On Aug. 6, 1945, the Enola Gay B-29 Superfortress bomber delivered its payload, dubbed Little Boy, onto the unsuspecting civilians of Hiroshima. Three days later, a second bomb— Fat Boy — fell on Nagasaki. The bombing led to the Japanese official surrender in World War II on Sept. 2, 1945.

By the end of 1945, about 210,000 people, mostly Japanese civilians and forced Korean laborers, had died. Some perished instantly in the blasts, others died later on from radiation poisoning. Pregnant women lost children in the aftermath, and thousands more civilians would fall victim to cancers and other side effects over the follo

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