American Battle Monuments Foundation’s Post

During World War II, the United States initiated the Manhattan Project, a secret mission to develop atomic weapons before Nazi Germany could. With key sites in Oak Ridge, TN, Hanford, WA, and Los Alamos, NM, the project brought together top scientists, led by J. Robert Oppenheimer. This massive effort was driven by a sense of urgency after physicists Leo Szilard and Albert Einstein warned President Roosevelt of the potential for Germany to create an "extremely powerful bomb." What made the project fascinating was its sheer scale and the unprecedented collaboration between military, scientific, and industrial forces across the country. At Oak Ridge, TN, uranium was enriched through complex and untested processes, while Hanford, WA, became the site of massive reactors producing plutonium—a newly discovered element crucial for one of the bomb designs. In spite of the unproven nature of the methods, the project continued, with each site playing a critical role in the final outcome. The secrecy was so intense that many of the workers had no idea what they were contributing to. The first successful test of an atomic bomb, known as the Trinity Test, took place in July 1945 in New Mexico. The bombs developed by the Manhattan Project were later used in Hiroshima and Nagasaki, bringing an end to World War II and introducing a new era of nuclear power. At the same time, complex moral questions arose from such transformative technology. #TheManhattanProject #Oppenheimer #ww2 #WeRemember

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