AUGUST 6 is a poignant day. On this day in 1945, hundreds of thousands of people died in Hiroshima as the first atomic bomb was used as a weapon of war. A few days later, it was used again in Nagasaki.

The huge death toll from people being fried alive was compounded by death from cancers and the slow destruction of those who survived the initial attack. Others developed cancers later on and death was visited upon a whole generation by the two bombs.

The use of the atomic bomb set off the nuclear age as the United States expanded its nuclear arsenal. A few years later, the Soviet Union developed its own system, followed by others.