Q. Why was the atomic bomb dropped on Hiroshima?

The US wanted to force a quick surrender by the Japanese to reduce the number of American lives lost. In addition, it was secretly decided at the Yalta Summit in February 1945 that the Soviet Union would enter the war against Japan. Using the atomic bomb before that entry was intended to assure U.S. supremacy in the post-war world order. The U.S. also wanted to test the world's first atomic bomb in actual combat to ascertain its effectiveness.

Hiroshima was supposed to be targeted because, the city's size and layout made it a suitable test site for the bomb's destructive power, and the concentration of military and munitions facilities was another factor in the decision, while most of Japan's other major cities had already been destroyed by air attack at the last stages of the war.

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