Hiroshima and Nagasaki, the two Japanese cities subjected to atomic bombings at the end of World War II, are working together to bid for the 2020 Summer Olympics, according to The Associated Press.
“The Olympics symbolize the abolition of nuclear arms and world peace, and we want to work to realize our plan to host the games,” Hiroshima Mayor Tadatoshi Akiba said, according to the news wire.
The announcement comes of the heels of Tokyo’s bid for the 2016 Summer Olympics. Brazil’s Rio de Janeiro won the games.
It was in Hiroshima at 8:15 a.m. on Aug. 6, 1945, during the closing weeks of World War II, that the first atomic bomb was dropped on a city. The blast produced a mushroom cloud and killed 140,000 people and left thousands more homeless. Three days later, the U.S. dropped a second bomb on Nagasaki, which killed an estimated 80,000 people, closing the chapter on the Second World War.
