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Did You Know?
Before the events of 9 August 1945 Nagasaki was best known as a picturesque port on Kyushu, which, for centuries before the Meiji Restoration, had acted as Japan's only link with the Western world.
On 9 August the second atomic bomb was dropped on the city, bringing World War II firmly to a close. The bomb missed its main target, the Mitsubishi shipyard, hitting instead a residential suburb, killing 75,000 people then, and the same number since as a result of wounds or the after-effects of radiation. Miraculously, some of the city survived and there remains quite a lot to see.Nagasaki's links with the West began with the unplanned arrival of a Portuguese ship to Kyushu in 1542, to be followed by a visit by the missionary St Francis Xavier in 1549. These early contacts led to the establishment of Nagasaki port in 1571. The Portuguese began a profitable trade here, but soon Christianity began to be seen as a threat to the country's stability and was banned. The Portuguese were expelled to be replaced by the Dutch, who seemed to the Japanese to be traders rather than proselytisers. A small Dutch enclave survived the Edo period, and when this era came to an end Nagasaki soon consolidated its position as one of Japan's major ports.
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