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
_______________________________ 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
_____________________________ 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
___________________________ 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