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1945: US drops atomic bomb on Hiroshima
The first atomic bomb has been dropped by a United States aircraft on the Japanese city of Hiroshima.
President Harry S Truman, announcing the news from the cruiser, USS Augusta, in the mid-Atlantic, said the device was more than 2,000 times more powerful than the largest bomb used to date.

An accurate assessment of the damage caused has so far been impossible due to a huge cloud of impenetrable dust covering the target. Hiroshima is one of the chief supply depots for the Japanese army.

The bomb was dropped from an American B-29 Superfortress, known as Enola Gay, at 0815 local time. The plane's crew say they saw a column of smoke rising and intense fires springing up.


We found the Japanese in our locality were not eager to befriend us - after all, they had not long ago had the most fearful weapon of all time dropped on their doorstep

People's War memories »

The President said the atomic bomb heralded the "harnessing of the basic power of the universe". It also marked a victory over the Germans in the race to be first to develop a weapon using atomic energy.

President Truman went on to warn the Japanese the Allies would completely destroy their capacity to make war.

The Potsdam declaration issued 10 days ago, which called for the unconditional surrender of Japan, was a last chance for the country to avoid utter destruction, the President said.

"If they do not now accept our terms they may expect a rain of ruin from the air the like of which has never been seen on Earth. Behind this air attack will follow by sea and land forces in such number and power as they have not yet seen, but with fighting skill of which they are already aware."

The British Prime Minister Clement Attlee, who has replaced Winston Churchill at Number 10, read out a statement prepared by his predecessor to MPs in the Commons.

It said the atomic project had such great potential the government felt it was right to pursue the research and to pool information with atomic scientists in the US.

As Britain was considered within easy reach of Germany and its bombers, the decision was made to set up the bomb-making plants in the US.

The statement continued: "By God's mercy, Britain and American science outpaced all German efforts. These were on a considerable scale, but far behind. The possession of these powers by the Germans at any time might have altered the result of the war."

Mr Churchill's statement said considerable efforts had been made to disrupt German progress - including attacks on plants making constituent parts of the bomb.

He ended: "We must indeed pray that these awful agencies will be made to conduce peace among the nations and that instead of wreaking measureless havoc upon the entire globe they become a perennial fountain of world prosperity."


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The bomb has caused widespread devastation at Hiroshima





In Context
The Hiroshima bomb, known as "Little Boy" - a reference to former President Roosevelt, contained the equivalent of between 12 and 15,000 tons of TNT and devastated an area of five square miles (13 square kilometres). More than 60% of the buildings in the city were destroyed.
Official Japanese figures at the time put the death toll at 118,661 civilians. But later estimates suggest the final toll was about 140,000, of Hiroshima's 350,000 population, including military personnel and those who died later from radiation. Many have also suffered long-term sickness and disability.

Three days later, the United States launched a second, bigger atomic bomb against the city of Nagasaki. The device known as "Fat man", after Winston Churchill, weighed nearly 4,050 kg (nearly 9,000lb).

Nagasaki is surrounded by mountains and because of this the level of destruction was confined to about 2.6 square miles or 6.7 square kilometres.

Nearly 74,000 were killed and a similar number injured.

The two atomic bombs, with the Soviet declaration of war against Japan on 8 August 1945, finally left the Japanese no choice.

Japan surrendered to the Allies on 14 August 1945.


Stories From 6 Aug
1945: US drops atomic bomb on Hiroshima
1961: Russian cosmonaut spends day in space
1995: Japan mourns Hiroshima anniversary
1987: David Owen resigns as leader of SDP
1971: Sailor's record 'wrong way' voyage





SEE STORY BELOW

1945: 'It was just against humanity'
The horror of the two atomic bombs dropped on Japan in 1945 is still keenly felt two generations later.
Student Kayoko Iwanaga, from Nagasaki, says she has seen many people suffer "mentally and physically" since she was a child.

She told her story to On This Day.

My father has a special ID which is called The Certification of Victims of the Atomic Bomb. It guarantees he can receive free medical care until he dies.

Yes, I am from the second generation of the atomic bomb victims.

9 August 1945, at 1102, the bomb was dropped on my city. Though my grandpa was in another city as a soldier, my grandma, my father, who was two years old, three aunts and two uncles were within 1.8km of the hypocentre.

My grandma had serious burning all over her body, including her face. Two aunts and one uncle died. Luckily, my father, one uncle and one aunt survived.


My young father remembers that his mother screamed and cried everyday because of the terrible pain

The situation there was so terrible, cruel and unbelievable. There was nothing. Even people who survived tended to blame themselves as they could not help family, friends or neighbours.

Many of them, especially people who lived near the centre, have suffered the hangover of the radioactivity of the bomb.

I never knew how my grandpa cared for my grandma as there was little food, water or medical treatment and no assistance from the UN or NGOs!

My young father remembers that his mother screamed and cried every day because of the terrible pain of the burning. He also told me that there were many fleas and worms all over her body.

Health checks

After a long time in pain, she hesitated to go out or appear in public for the rest of her life as the scars on her face were so obvious. She died after 25 years and I have never seen her.

What was her life? Had she committed a crime? Did she kill anybody? Why did she have to have such unbearable physical and mental pain?

This is one of real stories of the bomb which I have seen and heard from relatives and my father.

I know that the US came to my father's school and did health examinations regularly and researched the effects and then developed more atomic bombs.

I know that the reasons why the US dropped two different kinds of bombs in two different cities was that America wanted to know the effects by examining them and to exercise its dominance and power after the war.

It was just against humanity.

Do you still think it was necessary?


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1806 - The last Holy Roman Emperor abdicates ending the Holy Roman Empire.

1844 - The first UK press telegram was sent, to The Times, announcing the birth of Prince Alfred to Queen Victoria.

1889 - The screw bottle top was patented by Dan Rylands of Hope Glass Works, Yorkshire.

1926 – Harry Houdini performs his greatest feat, spending 91 minutes underwater in a sealed tank before escaping.

1949 - The 'acid bath murderer' John Haigh was executed. He was convicted of the murders of six people, although he claimed to have killed a total of nine, dissolving their bodies in concentrated sulphuric acid before forging papers in order to sell their possessions and collect substantial sums of money.

1962 - Jamaica became independent, after being a British colony for 300 years.

1964 – Prometheus, a bristlecone pine and the world's oldest tree, is cut down.

1996 – NASA announces that the ALH 84001 meteorite, thought to originate from Mars, contains evidence of primitive life-forms.

1942 - U.S. forces landed at Guadalcanal, marking the start of the first major allied offensive in the Pacific during World War II.

1947 – Thor Heyerdahl's balsa wood raft the Kon-Tiki, smashes into the reef at Raroia in the Tuamotu Islands after a 101-day, 7,000 kilometres (4,300 mi) journey across the Pacific Ocean in an attempt to prove that pre-historic peoples could have traveled from South America.

1958 - The Litter Act came into force in London as part of the Keep Britain Tidy campaign. Offenders could be fined up to £10 for dropping litter.

1976 – Viking program: Viking 2 enters orbit around Mars.

Births:

1950 – Ken Kutaragi, Founder of PlayStation
1953 – Nigel Mansell, English race car driver
1956 – Chris Foreman, English guitarist (Madness)
1961 – The Edge, Irish guitarist (U2)
1965 – Angus Fraser, England cricketer
1966 – Chris Eubank, English boxer
1969 – Yvie Burnett, British television vocal coach
1972 – Lüpüs Thünder, American musician (The Bloodhound Gang)
1973 – Scott Stapp, American singer (Creed)
1974 – Scott D'Amore, Canadian professional wrestler and manager
1976 – JC Chasez, American singer (*NSYNC)
1978 – Louis Saha, French footballer
1980 – Michael Urie, American actor and director
1981 – Roger Federer, Swiss tennis player
1981 – Meagan Good, American actress
1981 – Bradley McIntosh, British pop singer
1983 – Guy Burnet, British actor
1985 – Toby Flood, English Rugby Union player
1986 – Peyton List, American actress
1987 – Katie Leung, Scottish actress
1988 – Princess Beatrice of York, British royal

1963: Train robbers make off with millions
Thieves have ambushed the Glasgow to Euston mail train and stolen thousands of pounds.

Banks estimate they have lost over £2m in used, untraceable banknotes in the biggest ever raid on a British train.

The Post Office train - known as the Up Special - had run every night, without interference, for 125 years until it was brought to a halt by a red light at 0315 GMT in Buckinghamshire.


This was obviously a brilliantly planned operation

Det Supt Buckinghamshire CID

Driver Jack Mills, 58, has been detained in hospital in Aylesbury with head injuries after being coshed by the raiders, who police believe were masked and armed with sticks and iron bars.

But most of the 75 mail sorters working on the train were unaware of the 20 minute incident as the thieves uncoupled the engine and front two carriages of the train and drove them up to Bridego Bridge a mile away.

There they broke into the second carriage - restraining the four postal workers inside - and loaded 120 mail and money bags into a lorry waiting on the road beneath.

Investigators - including Buckinghamshire Police, the British Transport Police and the Post Office - were on the scene, near Cheddington, in the early hours of the morning and found signals had been tampered with and telephone wires cut.

The Detective Superintendent of Buckinghamshire CID said: "This was obviously a brilliantly planned operation."

Rewards totalling a record £260,000 have already been offered by insurers, banks and the Post Office for information leading to the arrest and conviction of the gang and return of the money.

The Postmaster-General Mr Bevins explained the robbery may have been an "inside job" and has called for a "full and urgent" inquiry into security on Royal Mail trains.

He was concerned the money on board had not been defaced, since much of it was en route to be destroyed.

Labour MP for Burnley Dan Jones proposed a bill to improve security on mail trains two years ago and in the House of Commons today expressed outrage that the matter had still not been addressed.



In Context
The total amount stolen was put at £2.6m in a heist that became known as the Great Train Robbery.
After a massive police operation the gang's abandoned hideout was found at Leatherslade Farm in Bedfordshire.

Just over six months later 12 - of a gang of 15 - thieves were sentenced to jail-terms totalling more than 300 years.

The robbery's mastermind, Bruce Reynolds, evaded capture until 1969, when he was given a 10 year sentence.

In the meantime two of his accomplices - Charlie Wilson and Ronnie Biggs - escaped.

Biggs only returned to the UK in 2001 for medical treatment and was imprisoned to serve the remainder of his 28 year sentence. He was released in August 2009 on compassionate grounds after suffering several strokes.

Jack Mills never worked again and died in 1970.



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Watch/Listen

The front of the train was uncoupled by the robbers


Footage of the Royal Mail train following the robbery





Stories From 8 Aug
1991: Beirut hostage John McCarthy freed
1974: President Nixon to resign from office
1963: Train robbers make off with millions
1988: Prince Andrew becomes a father
2001: Hollywood's 'golden couple' divorce

117 - Hadrian became emperor of Rome following the death of his father Trajan.

1296 - The Stone of Scone, on which Scottish kings had been crowned for centuries, was seized by King Edward I of England.

1503 – King James IV of Scotland marries Margaret Tudor, daughter of King Henry VII of England at Holyrood Abbey, Edinburgh, Scotland.

1876 – Thomas Edison receives a patent for his mimeograph.

1940 - The Battle of Britain began when the German air force waged a sustained series of daytime air attacks on Britain.

1942 – Walt Disney's animated film, Bambi premieres in United Kingdom.

1968 – Juro Wada successfully performs Japan's first heart transplant.

1991 - John McCarthy, Britain's longest-held hostage in Lebanon, was freed after more than five years in captivity. He had been held hostage since April 17, 1986 - a total of 1,943 days.

1997 - British newspapers romantically linked Diana, Princess of Wales with Dodi Al Fayed - the son of Mohammed Al Fayed, the owner of the London store Harrods.

2009 – Typhoon Morakot makes landfall in Taiwan, and almost the entire southern region of Taiwan is flooded by record-breaking rainfall.

(08-08-2011 13:18 )skully Wrote: [ -> ]1991 - John McCarthy, Britain's longest-held hostage in Lebanon, was freed after more than five years in captivity. He had been held hostage since April 17, 1986 - a total of 1,943 days.

At the time of his capture, McCarthy was a journalist working for United Press International Television News. Following his release, he co-authored, with then girlfriend Jill Morrell, a memoir of his years in captivity, entitled Some Other Rainbow. In 1995 he sailed around the coast of Britain with Sandi Toksvig, making a BBC documentary TV series and a book of the experience. McCarthy attended university with Toksvig's brother, Nick. John McCarthy currently co-presents the BBC Radio 4 programme Excess Baggage, also with Sandi Toksvig.

Jill Morrell had campaigned ceaselessly to keep McCarthy in the public's mind during his time in captivity and hopes were high that their romance would be rekindled. The Daily Mirror did an exclusive deal with them upon his release and they were whisked away to a remote cottage in a secret and secluded location.

The joke going around at the time was that on their first night back together McCarthy ran off screaming into the night, chased by a tearful Morrell who was shouting "but John, you always used to like it when I chained you to the bed!!"

McCarthy and Morrell split up in 1994.

1963 - http://www.guardian.co.uk/pictures/image...85,00.html

1721 - Prisoners at Newgate Jail were used as 'guinea pigs' to test vaccines used against disease.

1870 - The Elementary Education Act was passed. It gave compulsory, free education to every child in England and Wales between the age of five and 13.

1910 - A.J. Fisher of Chicago, Illinois received a patent for the electric washing machine.

1945 - The second atomic bomb was dropped by the United States, over Nagasaki, Japan, killing an estimated 74,000 people.

1969 – Members of a cult led by Charles Manson brutally murder pregnant actress Sharon Tate (wife of Roman Polanski), coffee heiress Abigail Folger, Polish actor Wojciech Frykowski, men's hairstylist Jay Sebring and recent high-school graduate Steven Parent.

1974 – As a direct result of the Watergate scandal, Richard Nixon becomes the first President of the United States to resign from office. His Vice President, Gerald Ford, becomes president.

1984 - Daley Thompson won the Olympic decathlon at the Summer Games in Los Angeles.

2001 – US President George W. Bush announces his support for federal funding of limited research on embryonic stem cells.