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The Independent UK
The Independent UK
World
Kiran Moodley

Hiroshima anniversary: How the map of the world changed during WW2

Aftermath: the devastation of Hiroshima in 1948, three years after the atomic bomb was dropped (AFP/Getty) (AFP/Getty)

Japan is commemorating 70 years since the US plane, the Enola Gay, dropped an atomic bomb on the city of Hiroshima during the Second World War, effectively ending the conflict between Japan and the Allies.

On the morning of Aug. 6, 1945 at 8:15 a.m., 2,000 feet above the ground, a falling atomic bomb detonated, causing 140,000 people to die in a city of 350,000, with 90 per cent of the city in utter ruin.

The city today has been rebuilt, modernised and hosts 1.2 million people. The Atomic Bomb Dome, now a U.N. World Heritage Site, has become the iconic image of Hiroshima.

With much focus of World War Two on the goings on in Europe, as the Allies fought Adolf Hitler's expanding Third Reich, the boundaries of the war in the Pacific and Asia is not as well understood.

To grasp the changing face of the conflict across the globe as the US entered the fray in 1941, this video shows the day by day conflict in just a few minutes:

The video was created by Emperor Tigerstar, who wants "people to learn history the easy way with visual map animations."

Below is another video showing a more detailed look at Europe's boundaries between 1939 and 1945.

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