Fallout from first nuclear attack lingers

Tomorrow is the 70th anniversary of the Hiroshima bombing, which killed 70,000. Geoffrey Roberts looks at how and why we ushered in the age of the megaton bomb.

Fears about the existential threat of nuclear weapons have captured fewer headlines since the end of the Cold War.

Yet the world’s nuclear powers retain the capacity to wipe out humanity many times over. Russia and the US keep thousands of nuclear weapons, while Britain, France, China, India, Israel, and Pakistan each has hundreds in their stockpiles.