The Manhattan Project marked one of the most transformative events in world history: the development of the atomic bombs that ended World War II and set the stage for the Cold War. While the initiative’s early focus was weapons based, additional applications for nuclear energy were later developed, leading to advances in the newly-emergent fields of chemotherapy, high-speed computer technology, genomics, and bioengineering.

The Manhattan Project’s three primary sites – Los Alamos, NM; Hanford, WA; and Oak Ridge, TN – speak eloquently to the project’s enormous scale and the frantic, round-the-clock effort required to create an atomic weapon ahead of the enemy. These three locations were central to the mission of the Manhattan Project, and have been selected by the National Park Service as historic sites that will comprise the Manhattan Project National Historical Park.