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What did the Manhattan Project do?

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The Manhattan Project produced the first atomic bomb. Several lines of research were pursued simultaneously. Both electromagnetic and fusion methods of separating the fissionable uranium-235 from uranium-238 were explored at Oak Ridge in Tennessee. The production of plutonium-239, first achieved at the University of Chicago, was further pursued at the Hanford Engineer Works in Washington state. In the meantime, at Los Alamos, New Mexico, scientists found a way to bring the fissionable material to supercritical mass (and thus explosion) and to control the timing and devised a weapon to house it. The first test, on July 16, 1945, at Alamogordo air force base in New Mexico, produced a massive nuclear explosion.

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