World Day for the Prohibition of Nuclear Weapons (Hiroshima Day) – the sixth day of August 1945 began for the whole world with stunning news. For the first time in history, the United States demonstrated the terrible destructive power of nuclear weapons by using them against people.

Hiroshima Day in History

On the morning of this day, the US Air Force bombed the city of Hiroshima in Japan, dropping the Little Boy bomb, which resulted in the instant death of about 80,000 people and the disappearance of more than 12,000 people. On August 9 of the same year, the Fat Man bomb was dropped on the industrial zone of Nagasaki. More than 73,000 people died and went missing.

In total, the terrible disaster took the lives of more than 300,000 people, the vast majority of whom were peaceful citizens. The deaths of the affected Japanese continued for many years from exposure and severe diseases. To this day, the consequences of the bombings affect people’s health and the environment.

The first international conference

Exactly a decade after the tragedy, the world community held the First International Conference in Hiroshima, where the issue of abandoning the most dangerous weapons in the world was discussed. In memory of the tragedy, they decided to celebrate Hiroshima Day and the Day of the Fight for the Prohibition of Weapons of Mass Destruction every year on August 6.

• In December 1994, after signing the Budapest Memorandum, Ukraine refused to place on the territory of the state weapons capable of causing mass death of people, and undertook not to manufacture or buy them.