 Manhattan Project
The Manhattan Project was a secret military project created in 1942 to produce the first US nuclear weapon. Fears that Nazi Germany would build and use a nuclear weapon during World War II triggered the start of the Manhattan Project, which was originally based in Manhattan, New York.
US physicist Robert Oppenheimer and General Leslie R. Groves served as directors of this project, which recruited some of the best US scientists, engineers and mathematicians. A number of European scientists, including Albert Einstein, Enrico Fermi, and Leo Szilard, also
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participated in the Manhattan Project.
Under the auspices of the Manhattan Project, three main research and production facilities were established at Oak Ridge, Tennessee; at Hanford, Washington; and at Los Alamos, New Mexico. The Oak Ridge Laboratories provided uranium-235 and Hanford produced weapons-grade plutonium. The Los Alamos Laboratory became the site for assembling nuclear weapons.
Los Alamos produced four weapons, two of which, Little Boy and Fat Man, were used against Japan in August 1945.
The Manhattan Project officially ended in 1946 when it became part of the Atomic Energy Commission (AEC).
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