Nagasaki is a harbor city located at the southwestern tip of Japan. It is Japan's oldest open port. Traders from the western world started arriving in the mid-sixteenth century. It became a major shipbuilding center by the twentieth century. It was the second city to be devastated by an atomic bomb which was dropped on August 9, 1945, just 3 days after the bomb that destroyed Hiroshima. The bomb that was dropped at Nagasaki resulted in 35,000-40,000 men, women, and children killed with an equal number injured. Like Hiroshima, most of the city was destroyed. The Nagasaki survivors of the atomic bomb have an increased risk for radiation-induced cancer and are part of a continuing study by the Atomic Bomb Casualty Commission which is now known as the Radiation Effects Research Foundation (RERF). The city was rebuilt after the end of World War II and is now a tourist attraction.

The aftermath from the atom bomb that was dropped on Nagasaki during World War II. (UPI/Corbis-Bettmann. Reproduced by permission.)