It is approximately 70 years since the first nuclear fission bomb to be dropped was delivered to Hiroshima.
Which is obviously a terrible thing to have occurred. The death toll (approximately 80,000) from a single weapon was astronomical, but when you compare it with other incidents where civilians were killed in war (such as the Nanjing Massacre when between 40,000-300,000 Chinese were killed) it becomes a little less "special".
Yet those other massacres seem to be less well remembered despite many having a death toll comparable to Hiroshima (or Nagasaki). There is a series of conventions on the conduct of war (the Geneva Conventions) that includes provisions for prohibiting attacks on civilians.
However these provisions seem to be optional and widely ignored by military leaders and their political masters whenever it becomes inconvenient.
Radiation poisoning is one aspect that would seem to make Hiroshima "special" but there are other incidents where civilians continued to die after the initial attack :-
- Civilian victims of gas attacks during WWI which continued well after the war (in the region of 200,000).
- Victims of delayed action munitions such as minefields and cluster bombs.
Even the notion that the attacks on Hiroshima and Nagasaki were so terrible that it should never be repeated does not make these incidents unique – gas attacks during WWI inspired the complete prohbition of chemical warfare (which worked out so well).
But Hiroshima is special; it is special to the victims, the victims' families, and the survivors. But that sort of special also applies to all of the other massacres of civilians; they are all special to those personally involved in them. And to be frank they should be special to everyone who believes that civilians should not be targets in warfare.
It is special in another way – it is probably unique in the effect on the Japanese governments past, present, and hopefully future in the sense that the government is opposed to warfare.
