What did the Manhattan Project do?

The Manhattan Project produced the first atomic bomb. Several lines of research were pursued simultaneously. Both electromagnetic and fusion methods of separating the fissionable uranium-235 from uranium-238 were explored at Oak Ridge in Tennessee. The production of plutonium-239, first achieved at the University of Chicago, was further pursued at the Hanford Engineer Works in Washington state. In the meantime, at Los Alamos, New Mexico, scientists found a way to bring the fissionable material to supercritical mass (and thus explosion) and to control the timing and devised a weapon to house it. The first test, on July 16, 1945, at Alamogordo air force base in New Mexico, produced a massive nuclear explosion.