A Graveyard with not a Tombstone standing.

Through history, humans have achieved great deeds in science, arts, etc., we have overcome our own demons and conquered obstacles that seemed unreachable, but, as our curious and greedy nature, sometimes we just don't know when to stop or we don't care who are we affecting with our decisions.

We have tapped into the power of manipulating the enormous potential of highly radioactive materials and used it as we please; unfortunately human ignorance and desperation can leads into committing horrible deeds. 62 years ago, as Albert Camus said: "Mechanized civilization has just reached the ultimate stage of barbarism" , we saw the dawn of the so called "Nuclear Age", and we saw the power of the catalyst of our time.

It all began in the final stages of WWII; months after the US declared war upon Japan in retaliation for the attack over Pearl Harbor, and even before that the Manhattan Project was underway. Harry S. Truman was unaware of the project until Franklin Roosevelt's death. The Manhattan Project, was a combined effort of the US, Canada and the UK to built the first atomic weapon. European refugee scientists and American scientists feared that Nazi Germany would develop such a project as well, and so they began to build the bomb. Those where the first signs of deterrence (a country's fear of the others power) that would subjugate the superpowers later.
The first nuclear device, called "Gadget", was detonated during the test "Trinity" near Almogordo, New Mexico on July 16, 1945. The Hiroshima and Nagasaki bombs were the second and third to be detonated and as of 2007 the only ones ever detonated in a military action. Finally, Truman decided to drop the bomb. The Target Committee of Los Alamos, recommended Kyoto, Hiroshima, Yokohama and Kokura as possible targets. The committee rejected the idea of attacking strictly military targets, for them it was really important the psychological factor of inducing fear in the citizens; this would later be proof of the cynical and inhuman way the attack was planed. On July 26, Truman and other allied leaders issued The Potsdam Declaration outlining terms of surrender for Japan:

"...The might that now converges on Japan is immeasurably greater than that which, when applied to the resisting Nazis, necessarily laid waste to the lands, the industry and the method of life of the whole German people. The full application of our military power, backed by our resolve, will mean the inevitable and complete destruction of the Japanese armed forces and just as inevitably the utter devastation of the Japanese homeland..."

On August 6 of 1945, the B-29 Enola Gay (named after the bomber commander's mother), was launched from North Field Airbase on Tinian in the West Pacific; Enola Gay was accompanied by two other B-29's, The Great Artiste and a nameless aircraft latter named Necessary Evil.

The bomb was released over Hiroshima at 08:15 (Hiroshima time), the bomb named Little Boy (gun type fission weapon) took 57 seconds to land on target. It created a blast equivalent to about 13 kilotons of TNT; the radius of the explosion was about 1.6 km (1 mile).
90% of the buildings in the radius where seriously damaged or completely destroyed. An estimated minimum of 90,000 people died withing two months. Around 800 to 1000 civilians lived on and they where named Hibakusha or Explotion-affected people.
Tokyo's first knowledge of what had really caused the disaster came from the White House public announcement in Washington, D.C., sixteen hours after the nuclear attack on Hiroshima.
Newspapers of the US where describing what Radio Tokyo said: "Practically all living things, human and animal, were literally seared to death".
By December of the same year thousands dies from injuries and some by radiation poisoning raiding the death toll to 140,000.

From then on, many survivors of people exposed to the heavy radiation have died.
Some of the pro-bombing arguments go from the fact that Japan chose not to surrender, it was preferable and less expensive than invasion and a speedy way to end the war.

But still, these doesn't justify the slaughter and the psychological damage of feeling the power of a weapon beyond anyones wildest dreams. Many scientists including Albert Einstein and Leo Szilard, were openly against this weapon. They were really aware of no just the harm it would bring dropping it, but the consequences in years after.
The same existence of nuclear weapons would bring the world into a crazy arms race between the super powers of the world. Now days we are paying the price of such an arms race. Theres no room left for the thousands of warheads stored in silos and the conventional methods of disarming the warheads are really slow and theres no room either for the highly dangerous leftovers.
The Prefectural Industrial Promotion Hall was one of the really few buildings still standing that were nearer to ground zero. The ruin was named Hiroshima Peace Memorial and made a UNESCO World Heritage site over the objections of the U.S. and China.
This events are a demonstration of the barbaric nature of humans. Humans are the only know life-form to perform such genocides against his own kind. And all this comes from loathing of each other and the greed that makes us do horrible things. We must try at all cost to never repeat this kind of acts ever again.