Sunday marks a somber anniversary -- the day the U.S. dropped the atomic bomb on Hiroshima, Japan on Aug. 6, 1945, 72 years ago.
A B-29 bomber named the Enola Gay dropped the bomb called "Little Boy," killing 80,000 Japanese people and injuring another 35,000, according to History.com. Another 60,000 people are estimated to have died within a year from injuries and radiation sustained in the bombing.
Three days later, the U.S. dropped a second atomic bomb on another Japanese city, Nagasaki, effectively ending World War II.
Since then, nuclear proliferation has created a dangerous modern world, with many nations now capable of using nuclear weapons on their neighbor.
The United Nations issued a statement Sunday urging countries to continue working toward a nuclear weapons-free world.
Credit: Ryosuke Ozawa
Credit: Ryosuke Ozawa
"The states possessing nuclear weapons have a special responsibility to undertake concrete and irreversible steps in nuclear disarmament," United Nations Secretary General António Guterres said in a message delivered for him at the annual memorial Saturday in Hiroshima, Japan.
The U.N. estimates nations around the world still have some 15,000 nuclear weapons in their arsenals.
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