On This Day — 2 August
Posted on: Fri 2 Aug 2019
On this day in 1939, the scientists Albert Einstein and Leo Szilard wrote a letter to the American president Franklin Delano Roosevelt, urging him to begin the Manhattan Project.
The goal of the Project —funded by the United States, United Kingdom and Canada—was to develop a nuclear bomb before Nazi Germany did.
Nuclear theory turned into a horrible reality when two atomic bombs were detonated over the Japanese cities Hiroshima and Nagasaki on 6 and 9 August 1945, respectively.
Produced by David Bucio
