Published on August 6, 2013
It is the anniversary of a simply dreadful, awful, terrible event.
In Hiroshima, Japan, a city where more than 140,000 people died from one bomb dropped on this date in 1945 (counting those who died with a year from radiation), people honor and remember the dead and renew their commitment to peace. Some people call for the destruction of all nuclear weapons, everywhere, so that this horrible event never happens again.Of course, it did happen again—just three days later, on August 9, 1945, another atomic bomb was dropped on the Japanese city of Nagasaki. But peace activists hope that NEVER AGAIN means from 1946 on. So far, so good; despite the fact that many more nations now have nuclear weapons, nobody has ever used them since the close of World War II.
It goes without saying that all kinds of bombings and attacks, battles and wars, especially those that kill or injure civilians, including children (and many of them do) are horrible. I have read some arguments that the nuclear bombs, as deadly as they were, probably saved lives over all—because the “firebombs” that had been used before were also killing hundreds of thousands of people—even as many as 100,000 people in a single night!- Make an origami peace crane.
- Art Club Blog has some photos of origami peace crane chains. I have seen some of these chains on gravestones and peace memorials. They are beautiful and touching.
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| Kids from all over the world send thousand-crane chains to the Children's Peace Monument in Hiroshima. |
Close up of thousand-crane
chains in the boxes seen here,
left, at the Peace Monument.
Also on this date:
Plan ahead:
Here are my Pinterest pages on August holidays, historical anniversaries in August, and August birthdays.
And here are my Pinterest pages on September holidays, historical anniversaries in September, and September birthdays.