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During World War II, the US planned to bomb Kokura, but cloud cover forced them to target Nagasaki instead, killing over 40,000 people. Nagasaki was not originally a target for nuclear strike.
History is full of near misses. From assassination attempts — Queen Victoria escaped seven such attempts — to terrifying standoffs like the Cuban Missile Crisis, cases abound that suggest that if the worst had happened, the world would be very different today. Perhaps the most devastating example occurred in August 1945, at the end of World War II, largely due to the American bombing of two Japanese cities: Hiroshima and Nagasaki. However, the horrific attacks did not go quite as originally planned. Instead of dropping the nuclear weapon on Nagasaki, US forces were supposed to strike Kokura, a city on the island of Kyushu, but on the morning of August 9, cloud cover hid Kokura. The bombing party circled the city many times, but eventually it became obvious that the sky would not clear. Following orders, the crew instead flew 95 miles (153 km) to their backup target: Nagasaki. Over 40,000 people were killed instantly and a third of the city was destroyed. After the war, the Japanese began using the phrase “the fortune of Kokura” whenever someone escaped danger without even knowing it existed.
Hiroshima e Nagasaki:
Originally, Nagasaki was not among the five cities named by the United States as targets for a nuclear strike.
The nuclear bomb that was detonated on Hiroshima was codenamed “Little Boy”, while “Fat Man” hit Nagasaki.
The American bombing of Tokyo on March 9, 1945 killed almost as many people as the nuclear attacks on Hiroshima and Nagasaki.
