With support from the University of Richmond

History News Network puts current events into historical perspective. Subscribe to our newsletter for new perspectives on the ways history continues to resonate in the present. Explore our archive of thousands of original op-eds and curated stories from around the web. Join us to learn more about the past, now.

Atomic Bomb Survivors Speak Out (HBO/Documentary)

It's hard to imagine HBO's disturbing documentary on survivors of the two atomic bombs dropped on Japan appearing on an American TV network 10 or 20 years after the event. Filmmaker Steve Okazaki tried -- and failed -- to make it for the 50th anniversary.

There's apparently enough emotional scar tissue built up to allow HBO's premiere of ''White Light/Black Rain: The Destruction of Hiroshima and Nagasaki'' on Monday (7:30 p.m. Eastern), exactly 62 years after the United States detonated the first-ever nuclear bomb over Hiroshima. The second, and so far last, atomic bomb was dropped three days later. It ended World War II.

Why is the time finally right?

''History is always worth recording and if there is a moment in history that hasn't been recorded and you're in a place where you have the resources, you should do it,'' said Sheila Nevins, head of HBO's documentary unit. She hopes it becomes a document of record shown in schools.
Read entire article at AP