A black day in the history of mankind

In 1942, a pile of uranium and graphite was assembled in a squash court underneath a stand on a football field in Chicago. Then, on 2 December 1942, the first man-made nuclear chain reaction was created. Once confirmed, Szilard shook hands with Fermi and said, “This will go down as a black day in the history of mankind.”

On 16 July 1945, the US detonated the world’s first nuclear bomb in the New Mexico desert. The test proved that nuclear energy could be weaponised.