History & Culture

The Manhattan Project was a massive, top secret national mobilization of scientists, engineers, technicians, and military personnel charged with producing a deployable atomic weapon during World War II. The project began as a multifaceted effort requiring the rapid advancement of nuclear physics and multiple engineering strategies to produce functional weapons designs and critical quantities of fissile materials, and produced weapons of unprecedented destructive capacity. The project included the Trinity Test on July 16, 1945, a few weeks before the United States dropped atomic bombs on Hiroshima and Nagasaki, Japan.

Coordinated by the US Army, Manhattan Project activities were located in numerous locations across the United States. Manhattan Project National Historical Park incorporates three of the most significant locations, each of which played an essential role in the Manhattan Project: Oak Ridge, Tennessee; Los Alamos, New Mexico; and Hanford, Washington.

Learn more about the Manhattan Project:

African Americans at Los Alamos and Oak Ridge: A Historic Context Study