It is an anniversary that almost goes unacknowledged in today's day and age. One that, at nearly a century old, is fading further into memory while the consequences of it have left lasting scars on human history. 81 years ago this week, on August 6th and 9th of 1945, the United States government would carry out the most heinous and life altering act of terrorism the world has ever seen, dropping two atomic bombs on the Japanese cities of Hiroshima and Nagasaki.

The immediate explosions resulted in the instantaneous death of approximately 80,000 people in Hiroshima. Days later the second bombing, this time targeting Nagasaki, would vaporize approximately 40,000 civilians, for a grand total of an estimated 120,000 people dead between the two cities combined, with tens of thousands more dying as a result of the aftermath.

In previous reporting, The Free Thought Project has directly addressed the prevailing false narratives regarding the atomic bombing of Japan, with articles such as Hiroshima At 80: Setting The Abhorrent Precedent For Atomic Warfare deconstructing the fabricated belief that such an attack was the only way to end the war without suffering excessive casualties. The analysis relies heavily on the testimony of top military officials of the time, including Chief of Staff Admiral William Leahy, 1st Supreme Allied Commander of Europe and later 34th President of the United States General Dwight Eisenhower, Commander of the Pacific Fleet Admiral Chester Nimitz, and Commander of the Southwest Pacific Fleet General Douglas MacArthur, all of whom expressed disgust at the use of such weapons, insisting that doing so was not necessary to bring about an end to the war.

Likewise, in other reporting such as Justifying Evil: How Roosevelt Used The Pearl Harbor Myth As A Pretext For Atrocity, the disingenuous distortions surrounding the attacks of Pearl Harbor are similarly dissected and debunked, conclusively demonstrating how the narrative surrounding the incident was a carefully curated facade obstructing the fact that the Roosevelt administration deliberately provoked the attack as a manufactured pretext to enter the conflict, rather than the fairy tale of the Japanese "surprise attack" recounted in American textbooks.

Historical records also indicate that despite the myth of "saving lives", in actuality the densely packed cities of Hiroshima and Nagasaki were deliberately identified by the Targeting Committee to maximize civilian casualties as a means of fully demonstrating the deadly capabilities of America's new weapon of mass destruction.

While the attacks on Hiroshima and Nagasaki are certainly the most well known instances of American mass murder against Japanese civilians, it is not the first of its kind. Only months earlier in March of 1945, under what is known as Operation Meetinghouse, the U.S. would carry out one of the most murderous and horrifying bombing campaigns in the history of the world. Hundreds of B-29 bombers descended over Tokyo, dropping more than 1,600 tons of incendiary bombs including napalm and white phosphorus over densely populated civilian areas, raining a terrifying hell fire from above that would kill over 100,000 civilians and displace over a million more from their homes as more than a quarter of the city was burned to the ground.