Hiroshima

Key point: China is not the only nation known for successfully reverse-engineering other countries' military equipment. Few aircraft have as great a mark on history as the B-29, the pencil-shaped American four-engine bomber that dropped the atomic bombs over…

The inventor with his eponymous weapon. AP Photo/Vladimir Vyatkin What is the deadliest weapon of the 20th century? Perhaps you think first of the atomic bomb, estimated to have killed as many as 200,000 people when the United States dropped two on the Japane…

At first glance, the world of Watchmen seems tired of superheroes. The new HBO series takes place 35 years after the events of the 1980s comic series on which it’s based. The original Watchmen, written by Alan Moore, tells the story of an alternate American t…

Key point: It did nothing to save Okinawa from the Allies. In early 1945, the Imperial Japanese Navy made a difficult decision: it would sacrifice the largest, most powerful battleships ever built to protect Okinawa, the gateway to Japans Home Islands. The d…

Key point: Genuine fear of global destruction kept us safe. The Cold War was a uniquely dangerous period in human history. Vast ideological differences, large standing armies and nuclear weapons on hair triggers meant the end of civilization was an ever-pres…

Mazda makes plenty of very mainstream cars; it's a small company by automotive standards, but one that competes hard for volume nevertheless. But Mazda is also a brand that has a well-deserved reputation for going its own way in so many different ways, from…

Trace the epic history of World War II across the globe with more than 100 detailed maps. In this stunning visual history book, custom maps tell the story of the Second World War from the rise of the Axis powers to the dropping of the atom bomb on Hiroshima …

Westerners are aware that the Americans fire-bombed the city of Dresden in Germany at the end of the Second World War, but most of the truth was suppressed as soon as it happened. Dresden was Eastern Germanys cultural centre, a city filled with museums and hi…

You did it! Another week down! We're putting up a post very much like this one every Friday, to celebrate the fact that the week is done. Down with labor-for-money! Up with leisure-for-free! We think of this …

The seven Catholic peace activists who were convicted on October 24 for their symbolic protest against nuclear weapons at the Kings Bay Naval Base are now facing a two-to-three-month wait to hear their prison sentences. They could face more than 20 years in p…