American Decades

Important Events in Science and Technology, 1940–1949

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.

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...

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