The brutality of the Japanese invasion of China in 1937 is almost unimaginable, by the of the war in 1945, some 20 million men woman and children had been slaughtered. This photograph from 1937 shows the

sheer inhumanity that the Japanese inflicted on the Chinese people, taken in Nanjing directly following the Japanese air forces fire bombing of the city. This child burned, screaming, most likely orphaned, is a testament to the East Asian War, known as WWII in the west. Japan would continue on this bloody warpath across Asia for five more years until it was directly challenged by another great power, the United States. It would take the American military 3 long years of island hopping and apocalyptic naval battles to drive the Japanese back to their home island. Only after a combination of the fear of invasion by both the USSR and the USA and the controversial and debatably political spectacle of the atomic bombing of the Japanese cities of Hiroshima and Nakisagki could bring the Japanese empire to a final defeat.