MANHATTAN PROJECT

WHAT

• Believe it or not the manhattan project had nothing to do with Manhattan.
• The American effort to build the atomic bombs was code named "The Manhattan Project"

SCIENCE BEHIND THE MADNESS

• In early 1939 German physicists learned how to induce nuclear energy
• Nuclear energy is released by the splitting of a uranium atom
• Albert Einstein & Enrico Fermi fled their homelands to warn the public
• Plutonium was the product of 51,000 workers laboring for 27 months

FUNDS

• As decisive as the atomic bomb was in WWII, it was largely an ignored topic by American government.
• Einstein wrote to Roosevelt pleading for the development of an atomic research project
• Research was initiated but was a very slow, small topic of discussion
• The beginning research took place at Columbia, Chicago, and. California at Berkely
• In December of 1942, the first controlled nuclear chain reaction occured

SECRECY

• Not even all the allied powers knew about the project
• Only Roosevelt and Churchill were aware
• Vice President Truman didn't even find out until he became president
• Eventually the sphere of scientists was infiltrated by so soviet spy Klaus Fuchs

TESTING

• After the nuclear chain reaction, nuclear facilities started being built
• The main plant was in Los Alamos, New Mexico
• This nuclear power plant employed over 120,000 Americans
• July 16, 1945 the "Fat Man" was dropped
• There was a blinding light visible for 200 miles

COVER UP

• Ammunition dump exploded in the desert

NUCLEAR AGE

• The magnitude of nuclear energy forever changed The world and the war
• The effects of the atomic bomb would not be realized until much later