The Metallurgical Laboratory at the University of Chicago in the US
state of Illinois was established during World War II to research the
chemistry and metallurgy of the newly discovered element plutonium, as
part of the Allied Manhattan Project to build an atomic bomb. It
developed chemical processes to separate plutonium, and created the
first weighable sample. The lab produced the first controlled nuclear
chain reaction in the Chicago Pile-1 nuclear reactor, which was
constructed under the stands of the university's old football stadium,
Stagg Field. Another reactor, Chicago Pile-3, the first reactor to use
heavy water as a neutron moderator, was built in early 1944. The
Metallurgical Laboratory also designed the X-10 Graphite Reactor at the
Clinton Engineer Works in Oak Ridge, Tennessee, and the B Reactor at the
Hanford Engineer Works. It became the first of the national
laboratories, the Argonne National Laboratory, on 1 July 1946.
Read more: <https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Metallurgical_Laboratory>
_______________________________
Today's selected anniversaries:
1882:
A group of London school boys led by Bobby Buckle founded
Hotspur Football Club so they could continue to play sports during the
winter months.
<https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tottenham_Hotspur_F.C.>
1943:
World War II: American and Australian airborne forces made a
landing at Nadzab as part of the New Guinea campaign against Japan.
<https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Landing_at_Nadzab>
1975:
Lynette "Squeaky" Fromme, a devotee of Charles Manson,
attempted to assassinate U.S. President Gerald Ford.
<https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lynette_Fromme>
1977:
NASA launched the robotic space probe Voyager 1, currently the
farthest spacecraft from Earth.
<https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Voyager_1>
_____________________________
Wiktionary's word of the day:
blasé:
Unimpressed with something because of over-familiarity.
<https://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/blas%C3%A9>
___________________________
Wikiquote quote of the day:
Close your bodily eye, so that you may see your picture first
with the spiritual eye. Then bring to the light of day that which you
have seen in the darkness so that it may react upon others from the
outside inwards. A picture must not be invented but felt. Observe the
form exactly, both the smallest and the large and do not separate the
small from the large, but rather the trivial from the important.
--Caspar David Friedrich
<https://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/Caspar_David_Friedrich>