| MOMENTS THAT CHANGED THE WORLD FOREVER | At 8.15am on 6 August 1945, USAAF B29 bomber ‘Enola Gay’ dropped the world's first operational atomic bomb, nicknamed 'Little Boy'. An estimated 120,000 people died within the first four days following the blast.
Three days later, on 9 August, another B29 bomber dropped the second operational atomic bomb on the city of Nagasaki, causing the deaths of over 70,000 people.
The bombing of these cities in August 1945 brought an end to the Second World War, but at a terrible cost to the Japanese civilian population, and signalling the dawn of the nuclear age.
Hiroshima and Nagasaki were experiments in a new kind of warfare, whose full implications were not entirely understood at the time.
What had led to the fateful decision to deploy these new weapons of mass destruction?
Watch our video to learn more
To mark the 75th anniversary of the dropping of the atomic bombs on Hiroshima and Nagasaki, IWM has commissioned a new digital artwork by contemporary artist Es Devlin, working in collaboration with her long-term studio colleague Machiko Weston. The artwork will be released on our website on 6 August – watch your inbox for more information. |
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| VOICES OF WAR | Voices of War brings together first-hand accounts from different perspectives on the dropping of the atomic bomb on Hiroshima on 6 August 1945, drawing on our extensive sound archive.
Take a moment to listen to our soundscape and reflect on what happened in Hiroshima almost 75 years ago. | |
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| HISTORY OF BOMBS | | See the critically acclaimed new installation History of Bombs at IWM London. Ai Weiwei has taken over our iconic atrium with an artwork that draws on his ongoing investigation into politics and power. | |
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