Bad luck: some people seem to treat the subject rather lightly and consider themselves the unluckiest person ever if they lose a long game of Pokemon, or because of some rather benign school occurrences. Sometimes people fall victim to such unlikely and improbable events that they may be tempted to declare themselves cursed. But it would be hard to beat the hard-luck of a Japanese man named Tsutomu Yamaguchi. On August 6th, 1945, he was in Hiroshima on a business trip when the first A-bomb dropped on Japan exploded. He suffered some burns, but was considered well enough that he could leave Hiroshima the next day and go home. To Nagasaki.
posted by clevershark on Mar 24, 2009 - 63 comments

Hiroshima: The Lost Photographs
posted by knave on Nov 12, 2008 - 27 comments

Paul Warfield Tibbets Jr (1915-2007) The commander of the B-29 plane Enola Gay that dropped the first atomic bomb, on Hiroshima in Japan in World War II, has died at the age of 92. Paul Warfield Tibbets Jr died at his home in Columbus, Ohio. The five-ton "Little Boy" bomb was dropped on the morning of 6 August 1945, killing about 140,000 Japanese. Many others died later. On the 60th anniversary of Hiroshima, the surviving members of the Enola Gay crew said: "The use of the atomic weapon was a necessary moment in history. We have no regrets".
posted by psmealey on Nov 1, 2007 - 115 comments

Photos from Hiroshima in August of 1945. Long supressed by the occupying U.S. forces, a highly unsettling (and decidedly NSFW) collection of photos from the days immediately after August 6th. Via.
posted by jonson on Feb 6, 2007 - 199 comments

August 6, 1945 Hiroshima, Japan "... Father Siemes' account is now given below without any editing or modification. His eyewitness account is a priceless insight into this event, as are his thoughts on the implications of total war and its application."
posted by paulsc on Aug 5, 2006 - 107 comments

The only photographs known to have been taken immediately after the atomic bombing of Hiroshima.
The photographer's (Yoshito Matsushige) testimony from Hiroshima Witness, talking about taking the pictures. This article waxes on about how few exposures he made, how many he framed but did not take.
posted by crush-onastick on Apr 20, 2004 - 28 comments