
The city before the bomb
Discover the neighborhoods, institutions, and ordinary lives that made up the city before August 1945.
On a Monday morning, the United States dropped the first atomic bomb used in war over a city where roughly 350,000 people were present.
The city’s year-end estimate includes people who died on the day of the bombing and in the months afterward.

Discover the neighborhoods, institutions, and ordinary lives that made up the city before August 1945.

Follow the mission, the detonation, and the first attempts to find water, shelter, and help.
Start with individual lives and listen to survivors tell their own stories.

Trace what survivors faced over weeks, years, and decades, from injury and illness to recognition and care.
Explore how local communities rebuilt and shaped the places and rituals of remembrance.
Follow the documentary record through photographs, maps, objects, and first-person testimony.