U.S. nuclear history U.S. nuclear history The United States Army Air Force dropped two atomic bombs on the Japanese cities of Hiroshima and Nagasaki on the mornings of August 6 and August 9, 1945 during World War II. The goal was to secure the unconditional surrender of Japan. At least 120,000 people died immediately from the two attacks combined, and many more would die in years to come from the effects of nuclear radiation. About 95% of the casualties were civilians. Japan sent notice of its unconditional surrender to the Allies on August 15, a week after the bombings. These bombings were the first and only nuclear attacks in world history. ...more on Wikipedia about "Atomic bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki"
On December 2, 1942, the world's first artificial self-sustaining nuclear chain reaction took place in the world's first nuclear reactor, Chicago Pile-1, shortened as CP-1, built on a racquets court under the abandoned west stands of the Alonzo Stagg Field stadium on the University of Chicago campus. Operation of CP-1 was terminated in February 1943 and the nuclear reactor dismantled and moved to the laboratory's Palos Park site A. It was reconstructed using CP-1 materials but enlarged with a radiation shield and named CP-2. It began operation in March 1943. ...more on Wikipedia about "Chicago Pile-1"
The Cuban Missile Crisis was a very tense confrontation between the Soviet Union and the United States over the Soviet deployment of nuclear missiles in Cuba. The period of greatest danger started on October 16, 1962, when U.S. reconnaissance was shown to U.S. president John F. Kennedy which revealed evidence for Soviet nuclear missile installations in Cuba, and lasted for 13 days until October 28, 1962, when Soviet leader Nikita Khrushchev announced the installations would be dismantled. It is regarded as the moment when the Cold War was closest to turning into a nuclear war. Russians refer to the event as the "Caribbean Crisis," while Cubans refer to it as the "October Crisis." ...more on Wikipedia about "Cuban Missile Crisis"
The Einstein-Szilárd letter was a letter sent to President Franklin Delano Roosevelt in August 1939 signed by Albert Einstein but largely written by Leó Szilárd. The letter advised Roosevelt that Nazi Germany may be conducting research into the possibility of using nuclear fission to create atomic bombs, and suggested that the United States should begin researching the possibility itself. ...more on Wikipedia about "Einstein-Szilárd letter"
Essence of Decision: Explaining the Cuban Missile Crisis is an analysis, by political scientist Graham T. Allison, of the Cuban Missile Crisis. However, Allison uses the crisis as a case study for future studies into governmental decisionmaking, and in doing so revolutionized the field of international relations. ...more on Wikipedia about "Essence of Decision"
The Interim Committee was a secret high-level group created in May 1945 by Secretary of War Henry L. Stimson with the approval of President Harry S. Truman to examine the problems that could result from the creation of the atomic bomb. ...more on Wikipedia about "Interim Committee"
Lyman James Briggs ( May 7, 1874 — March 25, 1963) was an American engineer, physicist and administrator, who is now chiefly known for heading the Briggs Advisory Committee on Uranium (widely known as the Uranium Committee or the Advisory Committee) and for the Lyman Briggs School of Science at Michigan State University named in his honor. He worked as a civil servant for the US Government for 49 years. ...more on Wikipedia about "Lyman James Briggs"
The Manhattan Project, or more formally, the Manhattan Engineering District (MED), was the effort during World War II to develop the first nuclear weapons of the United States with assistance from the United Kingdom and Canada. Its research was directed by American physicist J. Robert Oppenheimer, under the overall project supervision of General Leslie R. Groves and the auspices of the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers. The project's origins were in fears during the 1930s that Nazi Germany was also investigating such weapons of its own. ...more on Wikipedia about "Manhattan Project"
The Maud Committee was the beginning of the British atomic bomb project, before the United Kingdom joined forces with the United States in the Manhattan Project. ...more on Wikipedia about "MAUD Committee"
The Metallurgical Laboratory or "Met Lab" at the University of Chicago was part of the World War II–era Manhattan Project, created by the United States to develop an atomic bomb. ...more on Wikipedia about "Metallurgical Laboratory"
The National Defense Research Committee (NDRC) was an organization created "to coordinate, supervise, and conduct scientific research on the problems underlying the development, production, and use of mechanisms and devices of warfare" in the United States from June 27, 1940 until June 28, 1941. Most of its work was done under the strictest secrecy, and it laid the foundations for research in what would become some of the most important technology during World War II, including radar and the atomic bomb. It was superceded by the Office of Scientific Research and Development in 1941, and reduced to merely an advisory organization until it was eventually dissolved in 1947. ...more on Wikipedia about "National Defense Research Committee"
The nuclear arms race was a competition for supremacy in nuclear weapons between the United States and Soviet Union during the Cold War. An additional nuclear arms race developed between India and Pakistan during the end of the 1990s. ...more on Wikipedia about "Nuclear arms race"
The United States of America was the first country in the world to successfully develop nuclear weapons, and is the only country to have used them in war against another nation. During the Cold War it conducted over a thousand nuclear tests and developed many long-range weapon delivery systems. It maintains an arsenal of over ten thousand warheads to this day, as well as facilities for their construction and design, though many of the Cold War facilities have since been deactivated and are sites for environmental remediation. ...more on Wikipedia about "Nuclear weapons and the United States"
The Smyth Report was the common name given to an administrative history written by physicist Henry DeWolf Smyth about the Allied World War II effort to develop the atomic bomb, the Manhattan Project. The full title of the report was the unwieldy Atomic Energy for Military Purposes; The Official Report on the Development of the Atomic Bomb under the Auspices of the United States Government, 1940-1945. It was released to the public on August 11, 1945, after the atomic bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki on August 6 and 9. ...more on Wikipedia about "Smyth Report"
SALT I is the common name for the Strategic Arms Limitation Talks Agreement. SALT I froze the number of strategic ballistic missile launchers at existing levels, and provided for the addition of new submarine-launched ballistic missile (SLBM) launchers only after the same number of older intercontinental ballistic missile (ICBM) and SLBM launchers had been dismantled. ...more on Wikipedia about "Strategic Arms Limitation Talks"
Through the non-profit American Type Culture Collection and the Centers for Disease Control, the U.S. government under Ronald Reagan and George H.W. Bush sold or sent biological samples to Iraq under Saddam Hussein up until 1989. These materials included anthrax, West Nile virus and botulism, as well as Brucella melitensis, which damages major organs, and Clostridium perfringens, which causes gas gangrene. Some of these materials were used for Iraq's biological weapons research program, while others were used for vaccine development. Other countries, including France, Germany, Japan and the United Kingdom, supplied Iraq at this time. ** ** ...more on Wikipedia about "United States and weapons of mass destruction"
USS Nautilus (SSN-571), the first nuclear-powered submarine and a unique prototype, was the sixth ship of the United States Navy to be so named. The concept of the nuclear submarine was based on the work of physicist Philip Abelson. On December 12 1951, the Navy Department announced that the world's first nuclear-powered submarine (SSN 571) would carry the name Nautilus. Authorized by the Congress in July 1951, her keel was laid at the Electric Boat Division, Groton, Connecticut by the Honorable Harry S. Truman, President of the United States, on June 14, 1952. She was christened on January 21 1954 sponsored by Mamie Eisenhower, wife of President of the United States Dwight D. Eisenhower, who broke the traditional bottle of champagne on her bow as the ship slid down the ways into the Thames River, and was commissioned on September 30 1954 with Commander Eugene P. Wilkinson, USN, in command. ...more on Wikipedia about "USS Nautilus (SSN-571)"
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