The Manhattan Project

Manhattan Project In 1938, German scientists discovered the process of nuclear fission, splitting atoms, by using neutrons to barrage uranium. Copying and enhancing the experiment, many scientists traveled to and from one another, trading theories and ideas about their research. Then everything changed when Fascism and Nazism took over and began corrupting many parts of Europe, thus, World War II began. Many of the nations that were even remotely involved began looking for ways to win the war whether it was for themselves or to help one of the more dominant countries into success. Through this breakthrough in nuclear technology, many realized the masses of energy released in nuclear fission. This caused the idea of the atomic bomb to be the leading candidate to find this war-changing item. Many nations both the allies and axis began researching it, although Germany was thought to be the furthest in this research. When Leo Szilard, Albert Einstein, and Alexander Sachs told President Franklin D. Roosevelt about the awareness of the Nazi’s possibility to create an atomic bomb, Roosevelt knew that there was only one thing that he could do to stop this imminent threat: be the first country to obtain the capabilities of the atomic bomb and diminish the German’s hopes of procuring one.
The allies had many reasons to believe that the Germans were fairly advanced in atomic research. One of the main reasons was that when Germany had seized Belgium, they obtained the Belgian Congo in Africa. This was an area in the world held some of the richest uranium deposits in the world. Another one of the main reasons was the fact that Germany had also captured the only facility that produced “heavy water” (a synthetic material that has deuterium, a rare isotope of hydrogen, and oxygen) when they took over Norway. The last, probably most significant, reason was the Germans notable list of scientists regardless of the leaving of most Jewish scientists. Among the top scientists on that