Technology in the News Today
Born on this Day in History: July 16, 1968 - Barry Sanders, born in Wichita, Kansas, won the Heisman Trophy while playing football for Oklahoma State University in 1988. He was the third overall draft pick a year later, joining the Detroit Lions. His best professional season was 1997, when he set the record for rushing over 2000 yards. He was forced to reimburse the Lions more than $5 million dollars after his early retirement in 1998. |
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On this Day in History: July 16, 1945 - The Manhattan Project comes to an explosive end as the first atom bomb is successfully tested in Alamogordo, New Mexico. Plans for the creation of a uranium bomb by the Allies were established as early as 1939, when Italian emigre physicist Enrico Fermi met with U.S. Navy department officials at Columbia University to discuss the use of fissionable materials for military purposes. That same year, Albert Einstein wrote to President Franklin Roosevelt supporting the theory that an uncontrolled nuclear chain reaction had great potential as a basis for a weapon of mass destruction. In February 1940, the federal government granted a total of $6,000 for research. But in early 1942, with the United States now at war with the Axis powers, and fear mounting that Germany was working on its own uranium bomb, the War Department took a more active interest, and limits on resources for the project were removed. |
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