Tonya Gusevik
HIST102
Dr. Lupo
August 16, 2015
The Manhattan Project
The Manhattan Project is a short history of the beginning of the Atomic Bomb program during World War II. Nuclear research all started when the Japanese bombed Pearl Harbor, and the United States entered into World War II. Scientific development began in the years prior to the war. The program started in 1939 and grew to employ more than 130,000 people. The Manhattan Project maintained control over the research, development, and production of American atomic weapons. As a result two type of atomic bombs were developed. The Manhattan Project brought nations together, took the necessary measure to end World War II, and gave America multiple industrial advancements that are
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German scientists like Albert Einstein, Neils Bohr, and Ernest Rutherford were the first to aid in splitting the uranium atom that was necessary in creating the atomic bomb. These scientist were Jews, therefore during the Holocaust, they had to flee from Germany to America. The American scientists, many of whom came from fascist regimes in Europe, organized a project to exploit the new fission process for military purposes. This took place in 1939 when a conference between Enrico Fermi and the Navy Department was arranged. By the summer of 1939, Albert Einstein presented to Pres. Roosevelt, the military potential of an uncontrolled fission chain reaction. By February of the following year, $6,000 was awarded to start the research. While many of the scientists fled to America during the Holocaust, the Manhattan Project enable many exceptional scientists from Germany. The Manhattan Project was also aided by help from the UK and Canada. The United Nations gave an abundance of contribution to get scientists from Germany to safety and help supervise the project. The project included a group of top scientists, under General Leslie R. Groves, who worked around the clock to try to develop an atomic bomb within three years. The Americans and the British combined their efforts to research the development of the bomb and created plants and factories to work in. Multiple plants were created for three separate processes: electromagnetic, gaseous diffusion, and thermal diffusion. These plants helped to create plutonium and urainium 235, needed to manufacture the atomic