Hiroshima

The bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki were said at the time to be justified as the only way to end World War II. Seventy-five years later, legal experts say they would now be war crimes.

A U.S. firebombing campaign targeted Toyama and other Japanese cities, killing 180,000 before the atomic bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki, write geographer Cary Karacas and historian David Fedman.

The nuclear arms race wastes resources that could instead improve people's lives and protect the environment, the pontiff said. His tour marks the first papal visit to Japan in nearly 40 years.

The cruiser was returning from a secret mission to deliver atomic bomb components when she was sunk by a Japanese submarine. The ensuing loss of life is the large in the history of the U.S. Navy.

On Aug. 6, 1945, the U.S. dropped an atomic bomb on Hiroshima. Now, Japan, the U.S. and other nations grapple with calls for global disarmament amid the threat posed by North Korea.

NPR's Scott Simon remembers the work of John Hersey, who visited with people who lived through the bombing of Hiroshima. His reporting filled an entire issue of the New Yorker magazine in 1946.

Kikue Takagi narrowly survived the atomic bomb that killed her classmates. Soon after she moved to California, where she worked for many years at Disneyland. Now in her 80s, she's back in Hiroshima.

President Obama will be the first sitting U.S. president to visit the Japanese city since America dropped an atomic bomb on Hiroshima and Nagasaki at the end of 1945.

The White House hasn't announced any such plans. But Obama will be in Japan next month and a visit would be a grand symbolic gesture in keeping with his emphasis on nuclear nonproliferation.

Kerry is the highest-ranking U.S. official ever to visit the site. He honored the 140,000 Japanese who died in the U.S. attack on the city, but did not apologize for the bombing there and in Nagasaki.

The southern city was devastated three days after Hiroshima, in the closing act of World War II. At the ceremony, Prime Minister Shinzo Abe renewed his country's pledge to shun nuclear weapons.

The anniversary of the devastation wrought by the first military use of an atomic weapon comes as Japan's government is pushing an expanded role for its military.