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What was the Manhattan Project?

The Manhattan Project, formally called the Manhattan Engineer District, was the code name for the U.S. government project to develop an atomic bomb during World War II (1939-45). The name "Manhattan Project" was selected because much of the early research into the bomb was conducted at Columbia University in Manhattan, New York City.

The project was initiated by Italian-born American physicist (a scientist specializing in the interaction between energy and matter) Enrico Fermi (1901-1954). Fermi organized a group of scientists, several of whom had come to the United States to escape fascism (a fiercely nationalistic, often racist, dictatorship) in their native Europe, that wished to aid the United States in the war effort. Among this group of scientist-refugees were Albert Einstein (1897-1955) and Hans Bethe (1906-). The process for creating an uncontrolled nuclear fission reaction had...

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