Important Events in Science and Technology, 1940–1949

1940

• On May 15, the Vought-Sikorsky corporation conducts the first completely successful helicopter flight.
• On June 15, President Franklin D. Roosevelt establishes the National Defense Research Committee (NDRC), a new federal agency headed by Vannevar Bush to mobilize science for military purposes.
• In July, Physicist James Hillier of RCA completes construction of the first high-resolution electron microscope.
• In October, the Radiation Laboratory, a microwave-radiation lab nicknamed "Rad Lab," is established at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology to develop an airborne radar-intercept system.

1941

• John Vincent Atanasoff and Clifford Berry complete the Atanasoff Berry Computer (ABC), an unworkable prototype of the programmable digital computer.
• The Grand Coulee Dam begins operations in Washington state.
• Plutonium is isolated by Edwin M. McMillan and...