Leslie Groves (1896–1970) was a U.S. Army Corps of Engineers officer
who oversaw the construction of the Pentagon and directed the Manhattan
Project that developed the atomic bomb. After joining the Corps of
Engineers and assisting with projects in Nicaragua, he was posted to the
War Department General Staff. In 1940, he became special assistant for
construction to the Quartermaster General. He was given responsibility
in 1941 for the gigantic office complex to house the War Department's
40,000 staff which would ultimately become the Pentagon. In September
1942, Groves took charge of the Manhattan Project and was involved in
most aspects of the atomic bomb's development, including the acquisition
of raw materials and selection of target cities in Japan. He remained in
charge of the project until the U.S. Atomic Energy Commission assumed
responsibility for nuclear weapons production in 1947. He then headed
the Armed Forces Special Weapons Project, created to control the
military aspects of nuclear weapons. He was promoted to lieutenant
general just before his retirement in 1948 in recognition of his
leadership of the bomb program, and later became a vice-president at
Sperry Rand.
Read more: <https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Leslie_Groves>
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Today's selected anniversaries:
1807:
Robert Fulton's North River Steamboat, the world's first
commercially successful paddle steamer, went into service on the Hudson
River in New York.
<https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/North_River_Steamboat>
1943:
Second World War: The Royal Air Force began a strategic bombing
campaign against Nazi Germany's V-weapon programme by attacking the
Peenemünde Army Research Center.
<https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Operation_Hydra_(1943)>
1947:
A commission led by Cyril Radcliffe established the Radcliffe
Line, the border between India and Pakistan after the Partition of
India.
<https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Radcliffe_Line>
1977:
The Soviet icebreaker NS Arktika became the first surface ship
to reach the North Pole.
<https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Arktika_(icebreaker)>
2009:
A turbine at Sayano–Shushenskaya Dam in Khakassia, Russia,
broke apart violently, flooding the power station, causing widespread
power failures, and killing 75 people.
<https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2009_Sayano%E2%80%93Shushenskaya_power_station_accident>
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Wiktionary's word of the day:
remuneration:
1. Something given in exchange for goods or services rendered.
2. A payment for work done; wages, salary, emolument.
3. A recompense for a loss; compensation.
<https://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/remuneration>
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Wikiquote quote of the day:
 The idea of global unity is not new, but the absolute
necessity of it has only just arrived, like a sudden radical alteration
of the sun, and we shall have to adapt or disappear. If the nations are
ever to make a working synthesis of their ferocious contradictions, the
plan will be created in spirit before it can be formulated or accepted
in political fact. And it is in poetry that we can refresh our hope that
such a unity is occupying people's imaginations everywhere, since poetry
is the voice of spirit and imagination and all that is potential, as
well as of the healing benevolence that used to be the privilege of the
gods.
--Ted Hughes
<https://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/Ted_Hughes>