Atomic Bomb History

    On August 2, 1939 Albert Einstein President Franklin D. Roosevelt. Einstein and several other scientists told Roosevelt of efforts in Nazi Germany to purify uranium-235, which could be used to build an atomic bomb. It was shortly after that the United States Government began what was known then as "The Manhattan Project." The Manhattan Project was committed to researching, and eventually producing, the atomic bomb.

    The most complicated part in the making of the atomic bomb would be producing ample amounts of enriched uranium to sustain a chain reaction. Because at the time uranium-235 was very hard to extract.  A massive enrichment laboratory/plant was constructed at Oak Ridge, Tennessee. This is where Harold Urey and his colleagues at Columbia University devised an extraction system that worked on the principle of gaseous diffusion. 

    Over the course of 6 Years, from 1939 to 1945, more the $2 billion was spent on the Manhattan Project.  Finally the day came when they would test out the bomb, nicknamed "the gadget" during its development.  On July 16, 1945 the bomb was tested in the Jemez mountains in northern New Mexico at what is known as the Trinity site.