August 6 – Hiroshima Day and Peace Celebration

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nItnis the anniversary of a simply dreadful, awful, terrible event.
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nInnHiroshima, Japan, a city where more than 140,000 people died from onenbomb dropped on this date in 1945 (counting those who died with anyear from radiation), people honor and remember the dead and renewntheir commitment to peace. Some people call for the destruction ofnall nuclear weapons, everywhere, so that this horrible event nevernhappens again.
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nOfncourse, it did happen again—just three days later, on August 9,n1945, another atomic bomb was dropped on the Japanese city ofnNagasaki. But peace activists hope that NEVER AGAIN means from 1946non. So far, so good; despite the fact that many more nations now havennuclear weapons, nobody has ever used them since the close of WorldnWar II.
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nItngoes without saying that all kinds of bombings and attacks, battlesnand wars, especially those that kill or injure civilians, includingnchildren (and many of them do) are horrible. I have read somenarguments that the nuclear bombs, as deadly as they were, probablynsaved lives over all—because the “firebombs” that had been usednbefore were also killing hundreds of thousands of people—even asnmany as 100,000 people in a single night!
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• Make an origami peace crane.

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• ReadnSadako and the Thousand Paper Cranes. 

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• Art Club Blog has some photosnof origami peace crane chains. I have seen some of these chains onngravestones and peace memorials. They are beautiful and touching. 

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Kids from all over the world send thousand-crane chains to the Children’s Peace Monument in Hiroshima.

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Close up of thousand-crane chains in the boxes seen here, left, at the Peace Monument.

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nAlsonon this date:
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nAuthor Alfred, Lord Tennyson’s birthday 
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nPlannahead:
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