Timeline
1895 - 1942
1895 Wilhelm Roentgen discovers x-rays. The world immediately appreciates their medical potential. Within five years, for example, the British Army is using a mobile x-ray unit to locate bullets and shrapnel in wounded soldiers in the Sudan
1898 Marie Curie discovers the radioactive elements radium and polonium
1905 Albert Einstein develops theory about the relationship of mass and energy
1927 Herman Blumgart, a Boston physician, first uses radioactive tracers to diagnose heart disease
December 1938 Two German scientists, Otto Hahn and Fritz Strassman, demonstrate nuclear fission
August 1939 Albert Einstein sends a letter to President Roosevelt informing him of German atomic research and the potential for a bomb. This letter prompts Roosevelt to form a special committee to investigate the military implications of atomic research
September 1942 The Manhattan Project is formed to secretly build the atomic bomb before the Germans
December 1942 Enrico Fermi demonstrates the first self-sustaining nuclear chain reaction in a lab under the squash court at the University of Chicago
*Source: US dept. of energy office of environmental management & nuclearfiles.org |