Manhattan Project

The Manhattan Project was a research and development program conducted by the United States during World War II. It resulted in the production of the first atomic bombs. Late in the war, the United States dropped two of them on Japan.

The uranium enrichment was done at Oak Ridge, Tennessee, the plutonium was produced in Washington State, and the test bombs were assembled and detonated at Los Alamos, New Mexico. Numerous other sites throughout the country were part of the Manhattan Project. Physicist J. Robert Oppenheimer directed it.

The development of an atomic bomb was something urged on President Roosevelt by Albert Einstein ?, in numerous letters. The Germans had started research in this area and had they been the first to develop the Bomb, they could have won the war.

The project fundamentally changed civilization, ushering in the age of nuclear weapons.