Saturday, November 24, 2012

Where the atomic age began

Some Chicago history.
Where the atomic age began

1 comment:

  1. Anonymous11/24/2012

    My grandfather was a fireman working in the fire prevention bureau at the time. When city hall found out what they had done down there, city hall extremely pissed and told them to get it the F___ out of the city. The Fermi people couldn’t tell them what it was exactly about other than it was an experiment in theoretical physics.

    Fermi and his wife used to ride horses in the Forest Preserves with the Cook County Board President at the time and his wife. Fermi told him about being evicted from under the squash court. Who ever it was arranged for Fermi and the U of C the rent Forest Preserve land to continue the experiments. (boomers will remember this as the abandon Argonne site west of Maple Lake in Red Gate woods, great place to drink underage in the 1970’s). Some of this was in the movie “Fat Man and Little Boy” w/ Paul Neuman. 1989

    The project was so secret that even Harry Truman didn’t find out about it until just after FDR died.

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