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Who led the first controlled nuclear chain reaction in 1942?
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atomic bomb
The first atomic bomb test, near Alamogordo, New Mexico, July 16, 1945.
The first controlled nuclear chain reaction was led by the physicist Enrico Fermi.12
On December 2, 1942, Fermi and his team of researchers achieved this milestone at the University of Chicago. The experiment took place in a squash court located beneath the stands of the university's Stagg Field, where the team utilized uranium and high-purity graphite to successfully produce the first self-sustaining nuclear chain reaction. This achievement was a critical component of the Manhattan Project, the wartime effort to develop the first atomic bomb.134