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The First Atomic Bomb Exploded

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The first atomic bomb exploded July 16, 1945. The bomb was so powerful that the heat generated by the blast was 4 times the temperature at the center of the sun, blew out windows in houses more than 200 miles away, and killed every living creature within a mile (Faragher, 721). Out of fear that the Nazi 's might develop an atomic bomb, Franklin D. Roosevelt established a small nuclear research program in 1939. The president released resources to create the Manhattan Project, which was the American effort to design and build an atomic bomb (U.S. History Online Textbook). However, the Manhattan project wasn 't placed under the direction of the average American citizen, but the Army Corps of Engineers. In 1942 the first chain reaction in uranium was produced by Novel Prize winner named Enrico Fermi.
The following year, the government uprooted key researchers and their families, sending them to Los Alamos, New Mexico. Scientist were constantly followed by security personnel and treated like prisoners within their homes and community. As a result of this, scientists and their families formed a close-knit community with one another because of their shared need for secrecy and antagonism toward their army guardians (Faragher, 722). Sixteen million men and women left home for military service and to take advantage of wartime jobs (Faragher, 722). Roosevelt referred to this time period as "a great arsenal of democracy," due to the vast recovery from the Great Depression. States

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