Today I Learned …

On August 6, 1945, Tsutomo Yamaguchi was a 29- year-old engineer on the last day of a business trip in Hiroshima, Japan. He was walking through a company shipyard when an American B-29 bomber dropped the nuclear bomb on the city. The shockwave tossed Yamaguchi into the air and nearly knocked him out. He had burns all over his arms and face, and his eardrums had ruptured.

After spending the next couple of days in the midst of unspeakable destruction, Yamaguchi boarded a train for his hometown — of Nagasaki. On August 9, he was in his boss’s office, telling him about the Hiroshima bombing, when the Americans dropped the second nuclear bomb.

Not only did Yamaguchi survive both bombings, he went on to live past the age of ninety.     (from Mind=Blown: Amazing Facts About This Weird, Hilarious, Insane World, by Matthew Santoro.)