In the absence of special events, the plane that bombed Hiroshima will quietly remain on display at the National Air & Space Museum's airport annex.

Eighty years ago this week, the U.S. dropped an atomic bomb on Hiroshima, Japan on Aug. 6, 1945. Three days later, another fell on the city of Nagasaki. Between 120,000 and 220,000 people died in the blasts or from burns, other wounds and radiation exposure over the next few months.

U.S. dropped an atomic bomb on Hiroshima, Japan. An early newspaper account said “the obliterating blast” had “destroyed 60 per cent of the Japanese city.” “Practically all living things — human and animal — were ‘literally seared to death’ by the new weapon loosed against the industrial and military city,