The Manhattan Project
The fear that Nazi Germany would develop an atomic bomb, and Einstein’s letters to Roosevelt detailing Hitler’s attempts to get and purify uranium, led the U.S. to take action.
The Manhattan Project was started in 1939. Well-known scientists like Enrico Fermi and J. Robert Oppenheimer worked to develop the atomic bomb before any other nation could. The Manhattan Project cost more than $2 billion dollars and employed 130,000 people. An Interim Committee was formed in May 1945 to advise on wartime and post-war use of nuclear energy. This committee was chaired by Henry Stimson, Secretary of War.
The Manhattan Project was started in 1939. Well-known scientists like Enrico Fermi and J. Robert Oppenheimer worked to develop the atomic bomb before any other nation could. The Manhattan Project cost more than $2 billion dollars and employed 130,000 people. An Interim Committee was formed in May 1945 to advise on wartime and post-war use of nuclear energy. This committee was chaired by Henry Stimson, Secretary of War.
The Trinity Test
A test explosion of a nuclear bomb was conducted at the Trinity Site on July 16, 1945.
Major General Groves wrote an eyewitness account of this test to Stimson:
“. . .All seemed to sense immediately that the explosion had far exceeded the most optimistic expectations and wildest hopes of the scientists. All seemed to feel that they had been present at the birth of a new age-The Age of Atomic Energy-and felt their profound responsibility to help in guiding into right channels the tremendous forces which had been unlocked for the first time in history.”
“There was a feeling in that shelter that those concerned with its nativity should dedicate their lives to the mission that it would always be used for good and never for evil.”
While Truman was at the Potsdam Conference, he was informed the Trinity Test had been successful.
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