Hot Spot

NUCLEAR LEGACY On Aug. 9, 1945, the U.S. detonated an atom bomb above Nagasaki. The pilots meant to hit the Mitsubishi shipyards 3.2 kilometers south, but the day was cloudy and they missed their target, dropping the device instead over Nagasaki's northern suburb of Urakami. The bomb killed nearly 75,000 people instantly, and at least as many died afterward from the effects of radiation.

Like Hiroshima, its sister city in nuclear Armageddon, Nagasaki has made the preservation of the event's memory its legacy. The Nagasaki Atomic Bomb Museum, a brick building of contemporary architecture, documents the bombing and its aftermath. Its exhibits...