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The Manhattan Project was a top-secret research and development initiative during World War II, led by the United States with support from the United Kingdom and Canada, aimed at creating the first nuclear weapons. The project began in response to fears that Nazi Germany might develop an atomic bomb first. Directed by Major General Leslie Groves of the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers from 1942 to 1946, the project saw physicist J. Robert Oppenheimer lead the Los Alamos Laboratory, which designed the bombs.
The Manhattan Project produced two types of atomic bombs: a uranium-235-based gun-type fission weapon and a more complex plutonium-based implosion-type bomb. The project was supported by three primary sites: Oak Ridge, Tennessee, for uranium enrichment; Hanford, Washington, for plutonium production; and Los Alamos, New Mexico, for bomb design and assembly. At its peak, the project employed nearly 130,000 people.
The first nuclear explosion, known as the Trinity test, took place on July 16, 1945, in New Mexico. Just a month later, the U.S. dropped atomic bombs on Hiroshima and Nagasaki, Japan, contributing to the end of World War II. The Manhattan Project had lasting effects on global history, sparking the nuclear arms race and ushering in the Atomic Age.
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