On 9 August 1945 the United States dropped an atomic bomb on Nagasaki, a port city of Japan. Sumiteru Taniguchi was sixteen at the time, delivering post about a mile from ground zero. The force of the explosion threw him from his bicycle, melting his cotton shirt and searing the skin off his back and one arm. But Taniguchi survived, one of the fortunate few who did. Many thousands in Nagasaki and Hiroshima, the first city to be bombed, were not as fortunate. Japan surrendered six days later, thereby ending the Second World War.

Just like Taniguchi, who would become a lifelong advocate for the prohibition of nuclear weapons, Japan was left badly scarred after the war. But to understand the extent of the devastation, it helps to briefly discuss what came before the Second World War.