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- President Obama has become the first sitting U.S. president to visit the
Japanese city of Hiroshima since U.S. warplanes dropped the first atomic bomb on
August 6, 1945. The bombing killed 140,000 people and seriously injured another
100,000. Three days later, the U.S. dropped a second atomic bomb on Nagasaki,
killing another 74,000 people. Speaking at the Hiroshima Peace Memorial Park,
Obama offered no apology for the bombings but called for a world without nuclear
weapons. "Among those nations like my own that own nuclear stockpiles, we must
have the courage to escape the logic of fear and pursue a world without them,"
Obama said. Despite his call for an end to nuclear weapons, the United States
has been quietly upgrading its nuclear arsenal to create smaller, more precise
nuclear bombs as part of a massive effort that will cost up to $1 trillion over
three decades.
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