1940

 
1941
   1942   1943   1944   1945   1946   1947   1948   1949

 

  
Gen. Leslie R. Groves
Gen. Leslie R. Groves

• Manhattan Engineer District established; Colonel (later General) Leslie R. Groves appointed commanding officer.
• Los Alamos Ranch School selected as site for Project Y.

 
• University of California chosen to operate Los Alamos Laboratory for the US Army Corps of Engineer.
• J. Robert Oppenheimer becomes first Director of Los Alamos Laboratory.
• Los Alamos Ranch School staff members evacuate.
• Los Alamos Laboratory (Project Y) opens, One hundred scientists and support personnel arrive.
• World’s third nuclear reactor and first to use enriched uranium, code name “Water Boiler,” achieves criticality.
• Los Alamos residents’ right to vote raised in Town Council.
• Town Council discusses problem of swimming in Ashley Pond.
• No street names, street lights, phones, or mail delivery.
• ENIAC computer solves the first design problems related to the hydrogen bomb.
• Los Alamos University formed by Enrico Fermi and Hans Bethe.
• Edward Teller begins teaching a night course in advanced physics at the high school.
• Trinity test – Los Alamos scientists test the world’s first nuclear device.
• Severe water shortage; 150 truckloads of water hauled in daily.
• Norris E. Bradbury becomes Director of Los Alamos Laboratory.
• Secret three-day Super Conference at Los Alamos examines feasibility of developing the US hydrogen bomb.
• Operation Crossroads, first postwar nuclear test series, conducted at Bikini Atoll.
• World’s first plutonium-fueled nuclear reactor, “Clementine,” achieves criticality.
• First newspaper, the Los Alamos Times, begins publication.
• The Zia Company assumes support operations, US Army leaves.
• Atomic Energy Commission (AEC) begins oversight of Los Alamos Scientific Laboratory
• Monte Carlo computational techniques developed.
• Movie prices increase from 15 to 20 cents for adults and from 10 to 15 cents for children.
• Home milk and mail delivery begin.
• Los Alamos gets its own post office.
• Twenty-two seniors graduate from Los Alamos High School.
• First dial telephones available.
• Operation Sandstone conducted at Eniwetok (now Enewetak) Atoll.
• First liquefaction of helium-3 achieved.
• Trucks deliver 100 two-bedroom homes for civilian workers and their families.
• First bank opens.
• State legislature creates Los Alamos County.
St. Paul"s Cathedral during Battle of Britain
Battle of Britain

• John Ray Dunning demonstrates Niels Bohr's theory that uranium-235 is more fissionable than uranium-238.
• Germany invades Denmark, the Netherlands, Belgium and France and begins the Blitz against England (Battle of Britain).
Pearl Harbor Attack
Pearl Harbor Attack

• Glenn Seaborg and Edwin McMillan create element 94, plutonium.
• Lend-Lease Act authorizes U.S. military supplies to Allies.
• Japan bombs Pearl Harbor, US enters World War II.
Stagg Field Reactor
Stagg Field Reactor

• Japanese capture American and Filipino soldiers at Bataan; U.S. surrenders the Philippines on May 6.
• U.S. naval victory at Midway islands.
• First self-sustaining nuclear chain reaction, Stagg Field, University of Chicago.
• World's first operational nuclear reactor is activated at Oak Ridge, Tennessee.
• Battle of Stalingrad stalls German advances into Russia.
• American troops enter Palermo, Sicily; Mussolini's government overthrown.
D-Day Landing
D-Day Landing

• John Von Neumann and Oskar Morgenstern develop the mathematical theory of games.
• Otto Hahn wins Nobel Prize for discovery of atomic fission.
• I.I. Rabi wins Nobel Prize for studies of magnetic properties of molecular beams.
• Allies enter Rome on June 4, 1944
• Allies land on beaches of Normandy, France on D-Day, June 6.
• Paris is liberated on August 25.
• UN charter signed.
The Kiss: Celebration for End of WwII
Celebration for the end of WWII

• John Eckert and John Mauchly develop ENIAC, the first all-purpose, stored-program electronic computer.
• President Roosevelt dies in Warm Springs, Georgia, Vice President Harry S. Truman assumes the Presidency.
• May 7 Germany surrenders to Allies, ending the war in Europe.
• July 16 Trinity test – US detonates world’s first nuclear device near Alamogordo, New Mexico.
• August 6 “Little Boy” atomic bomb detonated above Hiroshima, August 9 “Fat Man” atomic bomb detonated above Nagasaki, August 14 Japan surrenders; WWII ends.
President Truman
President Truman

• Baruch Plan calls for the creation of an International Atomic Development Authority.
• President Truman signs Atomic Energy Act establishing the Atomic Energy Commission.
• The first Soviet reactor is developed under Igor Kurchatov.
• Max Delbruck and Alfred Hershey independently discover that the genetic material from different viruses can be combined to form a new type of virus.
• First meeting of the United Nations takes place.
• International Tribunal at Nuremberg convicts 22 German leaders of war crimes.
Post-War Europe
Post-War Europe

• Term “Cold War” first used by a presidential advisor during a congressional debate.
• Edwin Land invents the Polaroid instant camera.
• Edward Tatum and Joshua Lederberg discover genetic recombination in E.coli.
• Two shepherds discover the Dead Sea Scrolls.
• Marshall Plan proposed.
• The Indian subcontinent is divided into two countries, India and Pakistan.

• Berlin blockade and airlift.
• Richard Feynman, Julian Schwinger and Shin'ichiro Tomonaga independently develop renormalizable quantum electrodynamics.
• State of Israel founded.
• Truman desegregates the military.
• Mahatma Gandhi assassinated.

• The first two-stage rocket is launched at White Sands, New Mexico.
• Hideki Yukawa wins Nobel Prize for discovery of the pi meson.
• Soviet Union tests their first atomic weapon, Joe 1.
• North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO) is created.
• The German state is split into two counties, the German Democratic Republic (East Germany) and the German Federal Republic (West Germany).
• Communists assume power in China.