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On May 10th, 1940

The Germans invaded the Netherlands. In 1940 the Dutch foreign policy was to be neutral during any wars they were outside of and they would only take sides when attacked. The plan to attack the Netherlands was a part of a bigger attack to conquer France by bypassing the eastern French defense line. The Dutch government began to anticipate the attack and took some measures to make sure that they were prepared. Such as keeping soldiers on for a longer period and even proclaiming martial law which allowed them to arrest people considered a risk to national security, and censor military information. The question is why they had suspicions in the first place. Eventually on May 10th 1940 the Germans invaded the Netherlands. For about a week the Germans occupied the Netherlands until eventually Canada had led the military campaign that freed their country from the Nazis.

https://www.annefrank.org/en/anne-frank/go-in-depth/german-invasion-netherlands/

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September 1, 1939

On August 25, 1939, The German battleship, Schleswig-Holstein arrived in the port of Free City. It was officially their for the celebration of the anniversary of the German victory in the Battle of Tannenberg although over 200 marines secretly hit under deck. And on September 1, 1939, 4:43 A.M they began their unprovoked attack on Poland.

https://www.nationalww2museum.org/war/articles/invasion-poland-september-1939

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From the beginning, this was to be a different kind of war—a war not only of conquest but also of annihilation.

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August 6th, 1945

On August 6th, 1945 the U.S dropped the first atomic bomb on Hiroshima causing complete devastation killing an estimated 80,000 people immediately from the explosion alone. Tens of thousands more died from the radiation. https://www.nationalww2museum.org/war/articles/atomic-bomb-hiroshima

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August 9th 1945

On August 9th, 3 days after the bombing of Hiroshima, Nagasaki was hit by an atomic bomb by the U.S killing an approximate 74,000 people.

https://www.icanw.org/hiroshima_and_nagasaki_bombings

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The bombing of Pearl Harbor

December 7th, 1941

Hundreds of Japanese planes surprise attacked the U.S navy base destroying 20 ships and 300 planes and killing over 2,400 Americans. War was declared in Japan the very next day on December 8th, right after the attack.

https://www.history.com/articles/pearl-harbor

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January 1933 - May 1945

The Holocaust was an era that started in January of 1933 when Hitler and the Nazi party came into power. The Nazis did not immediately start murdering Jews, at first they boycotted their products and had them falsely imprisoned. This radicalization of Jews culminated into the "Final Solution" Which was implemented in 1941 through 1945. This "Solution" involved a large-scale massacre of all the Jews in Germany. https://encyclopedia.ushmm.org/content/en/article/introduction-to-the-holocaust

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April 9th, 1940

Nazi Germany Invaded Norway after they declared themselves neutral in the war. This was done to get more resources and supplies. This caused a 2 month resistance that ended on June 10th after Norway surrendered.

https://www.britannica.com/place/Norway/World-War-II

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1942 - 1945

The Tuskegee Airmen trained in the great lakes after graduation. Nearly 200 planes crashed in the Great Lakes during World War 2.

https://www.pbs.org/articles/who-are-the-tuskegee-airmen

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July 16th, 1945

Before the bombing of Hiroshima and Nagasaki there were doubts about its effectiveness and so that's why the Trinity Test was made. It was made to test the atomic bombs effectiveness in a remote area on the Alamagordo Bombing Range.

https://www.osti.gov/opennet/manhattan-project-history/Events/1945/trinity.htm

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THE TRINITY TEST(Trinity Test Site, July 16, 1945)
Events >Dawn of the Atomic Era, 1945

The War Enters Its Final Phase, 1945

Debate Over How to Use the Bomb, Late Spring 1945

The Trinity Test, July 16, 1945

Safety and the Trinity Test, July 1945

Evaluations of Trinity, July 1945

Potsdam and the Final Decision to Bomb, July 1945

The Atomic Bombing of Hiroshima, August 6, 1945

The Atomic Bombing of Nagasaki, August 9, 1945

Japan Surrenders, August 10-15, 1945

The Manhattan Project and the Second World War, 1939-1945

Until the atomic bomb could be tested, doubt would remain about its effectiveness. The world had never seen a nuclear explosion before, and estimates varied widely on how much energy would be released. Some scientists at Los Alamos continued privately to have doubts that it would work at all. There was only enough weapons-grade uranium available for one bomb, and confidence in the gun-type design was high, so on July 14, 1945, most of the uranium bomb ("Little Boy") began its trip westward to the Pacific without its design having ever been fully tested. A test of the plutonium bomb seemed vital, however, both to confirm its novel implosion design and to gather data on nuclear explosions in general. Several plutonium bombs were now "in the pipeline" and would be available over the next few weeks and months. It was therefore decided to test one of these.

Robert Oppenheimer chose to name this the "Trinity" test, a name inspired by the poems of John Donne. The site chosen was a remote corner on the Alamagordo Bombing Range known as the "Jornada del Muerto," or "Journey of Death," 210 miles south of Los Alamos. The elaborate instrumentation surrounding the site was tested with an explosion of a large amount of conventional explosives on May 7. Preparations continued throughout May and June and were complete by the beginning of July. Three observation bunkers located 10,000 yards north, west, and south (right) of the firing tower at ground zero would attempt to measure key aspects of the reaction. Specifically, scientists would try to determine the symmetry of the implosion and the amount of energy released. Additional measurements would be taken to determine damage estimates, and equipment would record the behavior of the fireball. The biggest concern was control of the radioactivity the test device would release. Not entirely content to trust favorable meteorological conditions to carry the radioactivity into the upper atmosphere, the Army stood ready to evacuate the people in surrounding areas.

On July 12, the plutonium core was taken to the test area in an army sedan (left). The non-nuclear components left for the test site at 12:01 a.m., Friday the 13th. During the day on the 13th, final assembly of the "Gadget" (as it was nicknamed) took place in the McDonald ranch house. By 5:00 p.m. on the 15th, the device had been assembled and hoisted atop the 100-foot firing tower. Leslie Groves, Vannevar Bush, James Conant, Ernest Lawrence, Thomas Farrell, James Chadwick, and others arrived in the test area, where it was pouring rain. Groves and Oppenheimer, standing at the S-10,000 control bunker, discussed what to do if the weather did not break in time for the scheduled 4:00 a.m. test. To break the tension, Fermi began offering anyone listening a wager on "whether or not the bomb would ignite the atmosphere, and if so, whether it would merely destroy New Mexico or destroy the world." Oppenheimer himself had bet ten dollars against George Kistiakowsky's entire month's pay that the bomb would not work at all. Meanwhile, Edward Teller was making everyone nervous by applying liberal amounts of sunscreen in the pre-dawn darkness and offering to pass it around. At 3:30, Groves and Oppenheimer pushed the time back to 5:30. At 4:00, the rain stopped. Kistiakowsky and his team armed the device shortly after 5:00 and retreated to S-10,000. In accordance with his policy that each observe from different locations in case of an accident, Groves left Oppenheimer and joined Bush and Conant at base camp. Those in shelters heard the countdown over the public address system, while observers at base camp picked it up on an FM radio signal.

During the final seconds, most observers laid down on the ground with their feet facing the Trinity site and simply waited. As the countdown approached one minute, Isidore Rabi said to the man lying next to him, Kenneth Griesen, "Aren't you nervous?" "Nope" was Griesen's reply. As Groves later wrote, "As I lay there in the final seconds, I thought only of what I would do if the countdown got to zero and nothing happened." Conant said he never knew seconds could be so long. As the countdown reached 10 seconds, Griesen suddenly blurted out to his neighbor Rabi, "Now I'm scared." Three, two, one, and Sam Allison cried out, "Now!"

At precisely 5:30 a.m. on Monday, July 16, 1945, the nuclear age began. While Manhattan Project staff members watched anxiously, the device exploded over the New Mexico desert, vaporizing the tower and turning the asphalt around the base of the tower to green sand. Seconds after the explosion came a huge blast wave and heat searing out across the desert. No one could see the radiation generated by the explosion, but they all knew it was there. The steel container "Jumbo," weighing over 200 tons and transported to the desert only to be eliminated from the test, was knocked ajar even though it stood half a mile from ground zero. As the orange and yellow fireball stretched up and spread, a second column, narrower than the first, rose and flattened into a mushroom shape, thus providing the atomic age with a visual image that has become imprinted on the human consciousness as a symbol of power and awesome destruction.

The most common immediate reactions to the explosion were surprise, joy, and relief. Lawrence was stepping from his car when, in his words, everything went "from darkness to brilliant sunshine in an instant"; he was "momentarily stunned by the surprise." (Click here to read Lawrence's thoughts on the Trinity test.) A military man was heard to exclaim, "The long-hairs have let it get away from them!" Hans Bethe , who had been looking directly at the explosion, was completely blinded for almost half a minute. Norris Bradbury reported that "the atom bomb did not fit into any preconceptions possessed by anybody." The blast wave knocked Kistiakowsky (who was over five miles away) to the ground. He quickly scrambled to his feet and slapped Oppenheimer on the back, saying, "Oppie, you owe me ten dollars." The physicist Victor Weisskopf reported that "our first feeling was one of elation." The word Isidor Rabi used was "jubilant." Within minutes, Rabi was passing around a bottle of whiskey. At base camp, Bush, Conant, and Groves shook hands. Rabi reported watching Oppenheimer arrive at base camp after the test:

You've seen pictures of Robert's hat. And he came to where we were in the headquarters, so to speak. And his walk was like "High Noon" -- I think it's the best I could describe it -- this kind of strut. He'd done it.

When they met, Groves said to Oppenheimer, "I am proud of you." Groves's assistant, Thomas Farrell, remarked to his boss that "the war is over," to which Groves replied, "Yes, after we drop two bombs on Japan." (Click here to read Groves's observations of the Trinity test [pdf].) Probably the most mundane response of all was Fermi's: he had calculated ahead of time how far the blast wave might displace small pieces of paper released into it. About 40 seconds after the explosion, Fermi stood, sprinkled his pre-prepared slips of paper into the atomic wind, and estimated from their deflection that the test had released energy equivalent to 10,000 tons of TNT. The actual result as it was finally calculated -- 21,000 tons (21 kilotons) -- was more than twice what Fermi had estimated with this experiment and four times as much as had been predicted by most at Los Alamos.

Soon shock and euphoria gave way to more sober reflections. Rabi reported that after the initial euphoria, a chill soon set in on those present. The test director, Kenneth Bainbridge, called the explosion a "foul and awesome display" and remarked to Oppenheimer, "Now we are all sons of bitches." Expressions of horror and remorse are especially common in the later writings of those who were present. Oppenheimer wrote that the experience called to his mind the legend of Prometheus, punished by Zeus for giving man fire, and said also that he thought fleetingly of Alfred Nobel's vain hope that dynamite would end wars. Most famously, Oppenheimer later recalled that the explosion had reminded him of a line from the Hindu holy text, the Bhagavad-Gita: "Now I am become Death, the destroyer of worlds." The terrifying destructive power of atomic weapons and the uses to which they might be put were to haunt many of the Manhattan Project scientists for the remainder of their lives.

The success of the Trinity test meant that both types of bombs -- the uranium design, untested but thought to be reliable, and the plutonium design, which had just been tested successfully -- were now available for use in the war against Japan. Little Boy, the uranium bomb, was dropped first atHiroshimaon August 6, while the plutonium weapon, Fat Man, followed three days later atNagasakion August 9. Within days,Japan offered to surrender.

The War Enters Its Final Phase, 1945

Debate Over How to Use the Bomb, Late Spring 1945

The Trinity Test, July 16, 1945

Safety and the Trinity Test, July 1945

Evaluations of Trinity, July 1945

Potsdam and the Final Decision to Bomb, July 1945

The Atomic Bombing of Hiroshima, August 6, 1945

The Atomic Bombing of Nagasaki, August 9, 1945

Japan Surrenders, August 10-15, 1945

The Manhattan Project and the Second World War, 1939-1945

Previous Next
Sources and notes for this page.

The text for this page was adapted from, and portions were taken directly from the the gadget being hoisted up the tower, the unidentified man sitting next to the gadget, and the photograph of Kenneth Bainbridge. The map of the Office of History and Heritage Resources publication: F. G. Gosling, The Manhattan Project: Making the Atomic Bomb (DOE/MA-0001; Washington: History Division, Department of Energy, January 1999), 48-49. On the availability of additional plutonium bombs (but not uranium), see " Trinity Test Site is reproduced from Vincent C. Jones, Manhattan: The Army and the Atomic Bomb, United States Army in World War II (Washington: Center of Military History, United States Army, 1988), 479. The photograph of Robert Oppenheimerwith Leslie Grovesat the Trinity Site appears on the cover of the History Office publication: The Signature Facilities of the Manhattan Project (Washington: History Division, Department of Energy, 2001). The photograph of Fat Man is courtesy the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers (via the National Archives). The Manhattan Engineer District, 1945-1946." The "long-hairs" remark is quoted in Los Alamos Scientific Laboratory, Los Alamos: Beginning of an Era, 1943-1945 (Los Alamos: Public Relations Office, Los Alamos Scientific Laboratory, ca. 1967-1971), 53; the anecdotes re the final seconds of the countdown are from Los Alamos: Beginning of an Era, 50-51. Clickhere for information on the color photograph of Trinity. The photograph of SED Herb Lehr holding the Gadget's core is courtesy the Los Alamos National Laboratory (LANL) and is reprinted in Rachel Fermi and Esther Samra, Picturing the Bomb: Photographs from the Secret World of the Manhattan Project (New York: Harry N. Abrams, Inc., Publishers, 1995), 138. The following pictures are also courtesy LANL: the bunker at S-10,000, the plutonium core being unloaded from the car ,

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Manhattan Project: The Trinity Test, July 16, 1945

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THE TRINITY TEST (Trinity Test Site, July 16, 1945) Events >Dawn of the Atomic Era, 1945 The War Enters Its Final Phase, 1945 Debate Over How to Use the Bomb, Late Spring 1945 The Trinity Test, July 16, 1945 Safety and the Trinity Test, July 1945 Evaluations of Trinity, July

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July 1944

During WW2 the US used cats as a way of lighting up the situation. Cats were used as a boost of morale, stress relieving pets and mascots.

https://www.nationalww2museum.org/war/articles/cats-in-the-military

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Ethiopia at the time was one of 2 African nations. Ethiopia had been invaded by Fascist Italy under Benito Mussolini. The Italians had taken extreme measures to commit countless atrocities on the independent African state. Many black men and women wished to fight on Ethiopia's behalf due to this injustice.

https://www.zinnedproject.org/news/tdih/ethiopia-invaded/

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June 1942

This battle was the turning point of the Pacific war. Above the Pacific American and Japanese pilots battled for supremacy ending with a decisive victory from the U.S navy.

https://avi-8.com/blogs/the-aviation-journal/dogfights-in-the-pacific-legendary-aerial-battles-of-world-war-ii?srsltid=AfmBOopYpZy_hW8SZeFRY1MBjc-6zyFoyNk6-RQEzG5V4EXVn9mYwVpi

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1918

This battalion of women only fighters was made after a few years into the war. The male Russian soldiers had begun to be disillusioned with the fighting. For that reason a women only fighting battalion was made called the Battalion of Death. They were called this due to their willingness to fight until their death.

https://historydetectivepodcast.com/maria-bochkareva-and-the-the-russian-womens-battalion-of-death/#:~:text=There%20was%20a%20massive%20response,was%20whittled%20down%20to%20300.

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September 30, 1928 - July 2nd, 2016

Elie Wiesel is known as a Holocaust survivor, author, and Nobel Peace Prize winner. When he was 15 he was captured by the Nazis and sent to a concentration camp in Poland. His most famous book is called, Night, in this book he describes his experiences in the Holocaust.

TCI Textbook, Pages 426 - 427

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1933 to 1945

During WW2 Nazis had developed racial health policies. These policies made it so that they could do cruel and unjust experimentation on their prisoners. These experiments ranged from freezing people, flying them up to high altitudes, and drug testing. Though im sure there was more done, these experiments were done to get more knowledge on how various races deal with diseases.

https://encyclopedia.ushmm.org/content/en/article/nazi-medical-experiments

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July 1940 - September 1940

This battle is when Great Britain was successfully defended against the many destructive air raids made by the German air force. This event was won by the Royal Air Force Command whos victory blocked out the possibility of an invasion and extended Great Britain's survival in the war till the eventual end.

https://encyclopedia.ushmm.org/content/en/article/nazi-medical-experiments

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August 22, 1942 - February 2, 1943

This battle is when the Soviets successfully defended the city of Stalingrad now known as Volgograd, during the Second Great War. Many Historians consider this the greatest battle from the entire conflict. This battle stopped the German advance in the Soviet Union and was the turning point in the war in favor of the Allies.

https://www.britannica.com/event/Battle-of-Stalingrad

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1943

Penicillin was first extensively used in the North Africa campaign. Penicillin was proved to be highly effective in treating injured soldiers inflicted with many different types of infections and other types of bacterial diseases.

https://www.ibms.org/resources/news/penicillin-the-war-time-miracle-drug-that-saved-millions/#:~:text=Penicillin%20was%20first%20used%20extensively,to%20treat%20all%20Allied%20forces.

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Jan 1, 1939

Around the time when WW2 first started the German Heinkel He-178 was made. This plane first took flight in 1939 and had a remarkable speed of over 400 miles per hour, despite this the German Heinkel was not used until more late into the war.

https://www.timetoast.com/timelines/inventions-of-ww-ii

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1936

The German V-2 rocket was first successfully launched on October 3rd, 1942, and on September 6th, 1944, was fired on Paris. Two days after over 1,100 V-2 rockets were fired at Great Britain, the last one being on March 27th of 1942. These rockets even bombarded Belgium for a time, adding to the death toll. This amount of missiles killed about 5,000 people, and at least 10,000 prisoners from the Mittelbau-Dora concentration camp died after being forced to build the V-2s at the underground Mittelwerk factory.

https://www.britannica.com/technology/V-2-rocket