-
The German radiochemists Otto Hahn, Fritz Strassmann, and Lise Meitner discover the process of fission in uranium in Berlin.
-
Link to LetterAlbert Einstein writes famous letter to President Franklin D. Roosevelt alerting the President to the importance of research on nuclear chain reactions and the possibility that research might lead to developing powerful bombs. Einstein notes that Germany has stopped the sale of uranium and German physicists are engaged in uranium research.
-
-
The first human-made self-sustaining nuclear chain reaction was under the supervision of Enrico Fermi, who described the apparatus as "a crude pile of black bricks and wooden timbers".[4]
-
-
After the bombingThe gun model uranium bomb, called Little Boy, is dropped on Hiroshima, Japan.
-
The implosion model plutonium bomb, called Fat Man, is dropped on Nagasaki, Japan. Five days later, Japan surrenders.
