Chicago, Illinois • December 2, 1942 In November 1942 the world’s first artificial nuclear reactor was assembled piecemeal below the bleachers of an unused and unheated double racquetball (squash) court at the University of Chicago’s Amos Alonzo Stagg Field. The impetus for building an American nuclear reactor, which consisted (mostly) of a huge pile of…
509th Composite Group HQ, Tinian, Mariana Islands • August 9, 1945 Despite the shockwaves that Hiroshima’s destruction on August 6, 1945, sent through Imperial circles, Japan’s government refused to agree to an unconditional surrender; their leaders insisted on preconditions, chief among them protecting the “prerogatives” of Emperor Hirohito as Japan’s “sovereign ruler.” (Had there been no Japanese…
509th Composite Group HQ, Tinian, Mariana Islands • August 6, 1945 For several months the U.S. had dropped more than 63 million leaflets across Japan, warning civilians of devastating aerial bombings and to evacuate the cities identified in the leaflets. Radio broadcasts from the American-held island of Saipan underscored the printed warnings. Many Japanese cities suffered terrible…
Peconic, Long Island, New York • August 2, 1939 On this date in 1939, 1 month before the outbreak of World War II in Europe, distinguished German-born professor, mathematician, and physicist Albert Einstein wrote President Franklin D. Roosevelt about the possibility of using a nuclear chain reaction to produce enormous amounts of energy that could be used…
Trinity Test Site near Alamogordo, New Mexico • July 16, 1945 On this date in 1945 the first detonation of an atomic bomb directly led to greater unimaginable destruction when “Little Boy” and “Fat Man” immolated Hiroshima and Nagasaki on August 6 and 9, 1945, respectively. Up until July 16, 1945, military brass and military and civilian scientists…
Pentagon, Washington, D.C. • May 31, 1945 On this date in 1945 a special group met in the Pentagon to search for an alternative to dropping the atomic bomb on Japan. The group had been called into existence by the new American president, Harry S. Truman. Neither Truman nor anyone else in the room knew…
San Francisco, California • July 15, 1945 On this date in 1945 the USS Indianapolis, a fast Portland-class cruiser in California for repairs, received orders to pick up some special cargo at Hunters Point (predecessor name for the now-closed San Francisco Naval Yard). Eleven days later, on July 26, Indianapolis unloaded her mysterious cargo—a large crate…
Chicago, Illinois • July 3, 1945 On this date in 1945 Hungarian-born physicist and inventor Leó Szilárd drafted the first of two versions of a petition to President Harry S. Truman, urging him not to use the atomic bomb on Japan before that nation had been given a chance to surrender. It was Szilárd who,…
509th Composite Group HQ, Tinian, Mariana Islands · August 9, 1945 Despite the shockwaves that Hiroshima’s destruction on August 6, 1945, sent through Imperial circles, Japan’s government refused to agree to an unconditional surrender, their leaders insisting on preconditions that protected the status of Hirohito as emperor. (Had there been no Japanese foot-dragging, would the Pacific…
509th Composite Group HQ, Tinian, Mariana Islands · August 6, 1945 For several months the U.S. had dropped more than 63 million leaflets across Japan, warning civilians of devastating aerial bombings. Many Japanese cities suffered terrible damage from napalm bombs that set their wood-frame buildings on fire. On August 1, 1945, some 80 percent of Hachioji, a…