(CNN)More than seven decades after the United States dropped an atomic bomb on the Japanese city of Hiroshima, effectively ending World War II, President Barack Obama is set to become the first U.S. president in history to visit the site of the attack on Friday.
The president’s visit shines an even brighter spotlight on what’s already one of the most popular tourist attractions in Japan.
According to figures released in April, nearly 1.5 million people visited the Hiroshima Peace Memorial Museum in 2015 — the year that marked the 70th anniversary of the atomic bombing.
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The number of international visitors has risen by 44.6 percent to 338,891 — a record high.
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The latter site memorializes the events and devastation surrounding the second atomic bomb dropped on that Japanese city three days after the Hiroshima bombing.
Most tourists gaze in mute awe at Hiroshima’s Atomic Bomb Genbaku Dome, which became a UNESCO World Heritage Site in 1996.
The now iconic structure, designed in 1915 by a Czech architect, was the city’s Industrial Promotion Hall.
When the United States dropped the bomb on August 6, 1945, it exploded just above the building, but didn’t totally destroy it because the immediate blast and heat buffered the air at ground zero.