The Manhattan Project - How US Developed the First Nuclear Weapon | Past to Future

This video presents the Manhattan Project - the codename of an American project working on the development of the world’s first-ever nuclear weapons.

The story actually began in 1938 in Berlin, Germany where a group of German physicists namely Otto Hahn, Lise Meitner, and Fritz Strassmann unexpectedly discovered the secrets of nuclear fission. Then the news of their fission experiments got out to the Allied powers, spreading the fears that Germany was working on creating a new-type bomb capable of massive destruction.
In 1939, some scientists fleeing from the fascist regimes to the US had persuaded Albert Einstein to send a letter to President Franklin D. Roosevelt, informing of the dangers of atomic technology in the hands of the Axis powers. This historic letter set in motion the American nuclear research program to acquire the bomb before Nazi Germany did.

The Advisory Committee on Uranium was first set up in Washington D.C as a team of scientists and military officials who researched uranium as a new kind of superweapon.
In 1942, the Manhattan Engineer District, led by Colonel Leslie R. Groves was established in the Manhattan borough with the purpose of creating an atomic bomb. The project was later named the "Manhattan Project” as much of the United States' stockpile of uranium ore was located in the Manhattan borough of New York City. However, New York City, due to its high population density and the proximity to the coast, soon lost ground as an ideal place for a ‘super-secret’ project. For security reasons, the laboratories were later established at Oak Ridge (Tennessee); Hanford (Washington); and Los Alamos (New Mexico) in isolated places, far from urban centers, and away from the coast.

The process of creating an atomic bomb was a challenge to the Uranium Committee as they needed to solve the puzzles about how to make weapons out of uranium and plutonium, an element that doesn’t occur in nature but can be made from uranium-238.

At first, scientists were not even trying to make a bomb but to figure out how to isolate the right kind of uranium to create the chain reaction. Therefore, at the early stage of the project, most of the time and money were spent finding out how to enrich uranium, or in other words, how to separate uranium-235 from uranium-238. Then, they had to figure out how much uranium-235 was needed to create critical mass to sustain a nuclear chain reaction, as well as how to trigger a reaction at the uranium atom. By 1942, with all the earlier questions answered, the project was officially authorized by Pre. Roosevelt and code-named the Manhattan Project.

The project was mostly conducted in Los Alamos Lab - a top-secret atomic weapons laboratory, where two such weapons were made later: one fueled by uranium-235 and the other by plutonium-239. It was also the place where the first Manhattan Project bombs were built and tested.
At 5:30 a.m. on July 16, 1945, scientists at Los Alamos Laboratory carried out the Trinity Test, which exploded the first atomic bomb “The Gadget” using plutonium, at the site near the Alamogordo air base, 120 miles (193 km) south of Albuquerque, New Mexico.

Two months before the Trinity Test, the Allies defeated Germany while the war with Japan continued. That same year, the Potsdam Conference held near Berlin on July 26 issued a declaration demanding “unconditional surrender of Japan.”, or else Japan will face “prompt and utter destruction.” The Japanese refused the terms outlined in the Potsdam Declaration despite having little chance of winning after the war with the Allies.

With no surrender agreement from Japan, Truman authorized the use of the bomb on Japan. Two bombs named the “Little Boy” and “Fat Man” were dropped on the city of Hiroshima and Nagasaki on August 6 and 9, respectively. The two bombings killed a total of more than 200,000 people, and forced Japan to initiate surrender negotiations the next day and formally surrender on August 14, 1945, bringing World War II to the end.
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Видео The Manhattan Project - How US Developed the First Nuclear Weapon | Past to Future канала Past To Future