Youtube video title art showing Oppenheimer and Heisenberg in front of a mushroom cloud ©Wikimedia commons
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STORY

Oppenheimer and the race to build the atomic bomb

As the Second World War began, so did the race to build the atomic bomb.

All major powers set out to make new discoveries in the field of nuclear technologies. The Allies only knew one thing - if they lost the race the results would be catastrophic. Driven by fear, the Allies began the Manhattan Project led by theoretical physicist J Robert Oppenheimer.

Germany began with an overwhelming head start, but in 1945 the Allies beat them to it. So why couldn’t Germany keep up? This is the story of the world’s first Nuclear Arms Race.

For more videos like this you can subscribe to IWM: Conflict Explained, a new YouTube channel from Imperial War Museums exploring the causes, course and consequences of war. 

 

Composite image of conflict related imagery ©IWM

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BRITISH HYDROGEN BOMB TESTS AT CHRISTMAS ISLAND, 1962 - 1963 ©IWM (CT 284)
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Devastation caused by the atomic bomb to trees half a mile from ground zero at Nagasaki. ©IWM (MH 2638)
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