Obama Visits Hiroshima, Reopens a Door Closed for 70 Years

Obama reflected on the day "death fell from the sky and the world was changed"

Barack Obama became the first sitting U.S. president to visit the site of the Hiroshima atomic bombing on Friday, using the moment to call for a world without nuclear weapons, NBC News reported.

Some 140,000 people were killed when the U.S. dropped an atomic bomb on the city on Aug. 6, 1945.

Obama spent a short time at the Hiroshima Peace Park Memorial Museum and then placed a wreath at the arched monument at the memorial park.

Obama reflected on the day "death fell from the sky and the world was changed," telling a gathering of survivors and officials that a "wall of fire destroyed a city and demonstrated that mankind possessed the means to destroy itself."

Obama did not apologize for the U.S. actions and instead paid tribute to "all the innocents killed across the arc of that terrible war," saying that "their souls speak to us" and "mere words cannot give voice to such suffering."

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