September 2, 2026
By Doug Allen

Read here for Mass Peace Action.

Eighty-one years ago on August 6, 1945, the US dropped an atomic bomb on Hiroshima, thus launching the nuclear age that increasingly threatens human and planetary survival.  This was followed on August 9 with the atomic bombing of Nagasaki. The atomic bomb was developed at the Los Alamos National Laboratory in New Mexico under the leadership of Robert Oppenheimer, with the scientific knowledge of Albert Einstein and other top scientists. Only three weeks before being used to attack Japan, the atomic bomb was first tested at the Trinity site at the White Sands missile range in New Mexico. 

We shall never know how many died, but the best estimates are that about 150,000 were immediately reduced to ashes or completely vaporized at Hiroshima and Nagasaki. Hundreds of thousands suffered and died soon thereafter, as did millions over the decades through nuclear radiation, genetic defects, cancers, and life-threatening environmental pollution. Most significantly, this launched the nuclear age with the understanding and technology to develop powerful and profitable nuclear weapons and delivery systems that would be used to threaten, control, and dominate the planet with the increasing possibility of destroying all human civilization.