Manhattan Project History

The summer of 1942 proved to be troublesome for the fledgling bomb project.

The first concerted effort to understand and study the effects of radiation on humans began in Chicago in 1942.

During the first half of 1942, several routes to a bomb were explored.

With the US now at war, a sense of great urgency permeated the government's scientific enterprise.

The Frisch-Peierls Memorandum was an important assessment confirming the feasibility of an atomic bomb.

General Leslie Groves and J. Robert Oppenheimer were a study in contrasts, yet both were key to the Manhattan Project's success.

Perhaps one of the most intriguing stories to come out of the Manhattan Project was the partnerships formed by the military, the scientific community, and some of America's foremost corporations.

A startling proportion of the most famous names on the Manhattan Project belonged to scientists who came to England or America to flee from the Axis.

President Franklin D. Roosevelt authorized the research, development, and production of an atomic bomb despite great uncertainties.

In the late 1930's and early 1940's, the vast majority of scientific research was conducted at colleges and universities across the US.