As WWII ends, Quakers look back in sorrow

On this day in 1945: Meeting at Guilford College during the last week of World War II, North Carolina Quakers declare, “We bow in penitence for helping to cause this war through selfishness, isolation and lack of vision, for now having loosed history’s most barbaric instrument of destruction.”

A songwriter’s tribute to ‘Atomic Power’

On this day in 1945: The day after Hiroshima, country musician Fred Kirby composes “Atomic Power,” the first song to acknowledge “The Bomb.” Billboard magazine calls it “the greatest folk song in 20 years.”  The chorus: “Atomic power, atomic power… It was given by the mighty hand of God.”

Other versions will outsell  the original by Kirby, who goes on to become a longtime kiddie-show cowboy at Charlotte’s WBTV.