Overview
During World War II, the cities of Hiroshima and Nagasaki, Japan, were destroyed by atomic bombs dropped by the United States military on August 6 and August 9, 1945, respectively, killing at least 100,000 civilians outright and many more over time. One of the primary reasons given for the use of the bomb was that it would force Japan to surrender unconditionally. Japan presented its formal document of surrender to the Allied powers on August 15. The survivors of the bombings are called hibakusha (被爆者), a Japanese word that translates literally to "bomb affected people."