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In spring 1945, the U.S. military was considering different targets for the first deployment of the atomic bomb that summer. Between April and June, military leaders generated a long list of Japanese cities using three criteria: First, the cities needed to be large, wider than three miles with sizable populations; second, they needed to have "high strategic value," meaning military installations of some kind; and third, they needed to have escaped the U.S.'s ongoing firebombing campaign begun in March 1945.

Very few areas met all the qualifications; among them were Kyoto, Hiroshima, Kokura, and Niigata. By the end of May 1945, these cities had become the finalists, with Kyoto and Hiroshima being the two primary targets. American B-29s would not firebomb those areas. An intact city would better demonstrate the destructive capacity of the atomic bombs.

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Then in early June, Nagasaki's fortunes changed. U.S. Secretary of War Henry Stimson wanted Kyoto removed from the target list, on the grounds that the city was too culturally significant to the Japanese to be destroyed. Some say his personal fondness for the city--he visited in the 1920s and may have honeymooned there--was the real reason he appealed to President Harry Truman to remove Kyoto from the list.

A replacement was not selected until the day before the official strike orders were issued. On July 24, 1945, a hand-written notation "and Nagasaki" appears on a draft of the strike order. It was officially added on July 25. The port city sat at the bottom of the list, its fourth-place position giving it the lowest rank.

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