END NOTE

The refining of sufficient quantities of uranium ore to manufacture nuclear weapons, should this theoretical possibility actually prove feasible, began in early September 1942 at a secret facility at Oak Ridge, Tennessee, using a stock of uranium ore secretly imported from the Belgian Congo at the direct order of the President of the United States.

On December 2, 1942, in a laboratory under the seats of the University of Chicago’s stadium, the first chain nuclear reactor, composed of graphite and uranium, operated as predicted, resulting in the sustained, controlled production of atomic energy.

An atomic bomb was now possible. It would be irresistible against any enemy.

The problem now became to produce a functioning weapon before the Germans could build one. . . .

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