Timeline
1942- 1950
1942-45 The Clinton Engineer Works is built in Oak Ridge, Tennessee. The Clinton Pile, the first true plutonium production reactor, begins operation in November 1943
1943-45 The Hanford Site is built in Richland, Washington by the Manhattan Project to produce plutonium. The first reactor begins operation in September 1944
July 1945 The United States explodes the first atomic device at a site near Alamagordo, New Mexico
August 1945 The United States drops atomic bombs on Hiroshima and Nagasaki. Japan surrenders
July 1946 The United States tests a nuclear bomb on Bikini Atoll, an island in the Pacific
August 1946 The Oak Ridge facility ships the first nuclear reactor-produced radioisotopes for civilian use to the Barnard Cancer Hospital in St. Louis
April-May 1948 Nuclear tests in the South Pacific (Operation Sandstone) pave the way for mass production of weapons that previously had to be assembled by hand. By late 1948, the United States has 50 nuclear bombs
August 1949 The Soviet Union detonates its first atomic device
January 1950 President Truman orders the US Atomic Energy Commission to develop the hydrogen bomb
*Source: US dept. of energy office of environmental management & nuclearfiles.org |