A New Way To Learn Your Chemistry History

The world-changing scientific achievements of the Manhattan Project, which created the first atomic bomb, will be honored with a new national park. Under an agreement signed this week, the Departments of Energy and the Interior will preserve some of the historic sites that were crucial to the project and make them accessible to the public through the U.S. national park system. When it opens to the public—the date hasn’t been announced yet—the Manhattan Project National Historical Park will include sites in Oak Ridge, Tenn.; Los Alamos, N.M.; and Hanford, Wash. The park might include historic locations such as the X-10 Graphite Reactor at Oak Ridge, shown in this undated historical photo, which converted uranium into plutonium for the Manhattan Project.