December 2, 1942: The 1st Controlled Nuclear Chain Reaction

December 2, 1942: The world's 1st controlled nuclear chain reaction takes place, at a laboratory at the University of Chicago, as part of the top-secret Manhattan Project.

"Chicago Pile-1" was built inside a squash court under the football stadium, Stagg Field. It was directed by Enrico Fermi, the Italian physicist, who becomes known as "The Architect of the Atomic Age."

Fermi described the reactor as "a crude pile of black bricks and wooden timbers. "Although the project's civilian and military leaders had misgivings about the possibility of a disastrous runaway reaction -- one that might, you know, lead to the destruction of the whole damn world -- they trusted Fermi's safety calculations and decided they could carry out the experiment in a densely populated area.

I have a theory as to why most of the adults in the film Ferris Bueller's Day Off, which takes place in and around Chicago in the Spring of 1985, seem so stupid: It might take place in an alternate reality, in which Fermi's chain reaction wasn't as controlled as everyone thought, and 99 percent of the people living and/or born in the "Chicagoland" area over the next quarter-century or so (leaving 1 percent to be smart, like Ferris and Sloane, Cam not so much), ended up stupid enough to fall for all of Ferris' schemes. Or, something similar happened to produce such widespread stupidity.

But it did work, proving it could be done. The Manhattan Project moved forward. The atomic bomb was built, and nuclear power became widespread by the time Fermi died in 1954, at the age of 53.

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December 2, 1942 was a Wednesday. Baseball was out of season. Football was in midweek. The NBA hadn't been founded yet. And no games were scheduled for the NHL. So there were no scores on this historic day.

 

July 16, 1945: The Trinity Test

July 16, 1945: The Trinity test takes place. It is successful.

In June 1942, the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers started the Manhattan Project. This walled-off, super-secure facility in Los Alamos, New Mexico was kept as secret as they could, in order to keep Nazi Germany from knowing what they were doing. As it turned out, the real worry was with the Soviet Union, and their spies.

Due to the Allied bombings of German facilities, the Nazis never came close to developing an atomic bomb. They surrendered on May 8, 1945. But the new President, Harry Truman, wanted to avoid a full-scale invasion of the remaining enemy, Japan, if at all possible. The atomic bomb was the solution.

The Project's director was J. Robert Oppenheimer. He had a concern that the bomb might ignite the atmosphere and eliminate all life on Earth. But he said the chance of that happening was "near zero."

The first bomb was completed, and its test, codenamed "Trinity," was set for July 16, 1945, at what is now White Sands Missile Range, in a sparsely populated area outside Bingham, New Mexico. The detonation was at 5:29 AM Mountain Time, 7:29 U.S. Eastern Time. The test was successful. But every witness knew that this was both good news in the short term and, potentially, very bad news in the long run. They knew that America wouldn't have a monopoly on the bomb forever. Oppenheimer later said:

We knew the world would not be the same. A few people laughed, a few people cried. Most people were silent. I remembered the line from the Hindu scripture, the Bhagavad Gita. Vishnu is trying to persuade the Prince that he should do his duty, and, to impress him, takes on his multi-armed form, and says, "Now, I am become Death, the destroyer of worlds." I suppose we all thought that, one way or another.

On August 6, Truman ordered the dropping of the 1st available atomic bomb on Hiroshima, Japan. On August 9, he ordered another, dropped on Nagasaki. On August 14, Japan surrendered.

In 1949, the Soviets announced that they had successfully tested an atomic bomb.

A 2019 episode of the YouTube series Epic Rap Battles of History featured "Nice" Peter Shukoff playing Oppenheimer, and "Epic" Lloyd Ahlquist playing Marvel Comics villain Thanos.

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July 16, 1945 was a Monday. These baseball games were played:

* The New York Yankees lost to the Detroit Tigers, 9-4 at Yankee Stadium.

* The New York Giants lost to the Chicago Cubs, 4-3 at the Polo Grounds.

* The Brooklyn Dodgers beat the Pittsburgh Pirates, 8-4 at Forbes Field in Pittsburgh.

* The Cleveland Indians beat the Boston Red Sox, 3-2 at Fenway Park in Boston.

* A doubleheader was split at Shibe Park in Philadelphia. The Chicago White Sox won the opener, 6-2. The Philadelphia Athletics won the nightcap, 7-1.

* The St. Louis Browns swept a doubleheader from the Washington Senators, 7-3 and 5-1 at Griffith Stadium in Washington.

* The St. Louis Cardinals beat the Boston Braves, 2-0 at Sportsman's Park in St. Louis. Harry Brecheen pitched a 7-hit shutout.

* And the Cincinnati Reds and the Philadelphia Phillies were not scheduled.