Aug. 6 and Aug. 9 are the 80th anniversaries of the U.S. atomic bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki. The killing of 140,000 civilians at Hiroshima was the effect of detonating a 60 million-degree Celsius explosion (10,000 times hotter than the surface of the sun) over the city.

Richard Rhodes’ “The Making of the Atomic Bomb” reported, “People exposed within half a mile of the … fireball were seared to bundles of smoking black char in a fraction of a second as their internal organs boiled away.”

The use of atomic bombs was rationalized after the fact using myths that transformed the burning of children into a positive good. President Harry Truman and government propagandists justified the attacks claiming they “ended the war” and “saved lives” – stories still believed today – but, as histo

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