the Manhattan Project
/ðə ˌmænˈhætn prɒdʒekt/
/ðə ˌmænˈhætn prɑːdʒekt/
- the secret US project to develop the atomic bomb, begun in 1942. It involved a team of scientists led by J Robert Oppenheimer, first at Oak Ridge, Tennessee, and later at Los Alamos, New Mexico, where the bomb was built. The first bomb was exploded as a test near Alamogordo, New Mexico, on 16 July 1945.