Early in 1939, the world's scientific community discovered that German physicists had learned the secrets of splitting a uranium atom. Fears soon spread over the possibility of Nazi scientists .


Scientists ALBERT EINSTEIN, who fled Nazi persecution, and ENRICO FERMI, who escaped Fascist Italy, were now living in the United States. They agreed that the President must be informed of the dangers of atomic technology in the hands of the Axis powers.

Einstein penned a letter to President Roosevelt urging the development of an atomic research program later that year. Roosevelt saw neither the necessity nor the utility for such a project, but agreed to proceed slowly.
In late 1941, the American effort to design and build an ATOMIC BOMB received its code name : the MANHATTAN PROJECT.


Secrecy was paramount.Vice-President Truman had never heard of the Manhattan Project until he became President Truman. Neither the Germans nor the Japanese could learn of the project.Only a small privileged cadre of inner scientists and officials knew about the atomic bomb's development.American leaders later learned that a Soviet spy named KLAUS FUCHS had penetrated the inner circle of scientists.

By the summer of 1945, Oppenheimer was ready to test the first bomb. On July 16, 1945, at TRINITY SITE near ALAMOGORDO, NEW MEXICO, scientists of the Manhattan Project readied themselves to watch the detonation of the world's first atomic bomb.A mushroom cloud reached 40,000 feet, blowing out windows of civilian homes up to 100 miles away.

The world had entered the nuclear age..