Population: 183,645 (2012)
Travel tip: The unique and ubiquitous island of Tahiti is world -renowned for its Polynesian charm, colorful culture and romantic ambiance. The grass-skirted hip shaking of Tahitian dance is sure to get your toes tapping and heart thumping—let the celebratory vibe of this magical locale rejuvenate and excite you to the core. Warm … @tripadvisor
Area: 403.48 sq miles (1,045 km²)
Island groups: Society Islands · Windward Islands
Location: Pacific Ocean
Points of interest: Paul Gauguin Museum · Robert Wan Pearl Museum

The Manhattan Project was a research and development undertaking during World War II that produced the first nuclear weapons. It was led by the United States with the support of the United Kingdom and Canada. From 1942 to 1946, the project was under the direction of Major General Leslie Groves of the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers. Nuclear physicist J. Robert Oppenheimer was the director of the Los Alamos Laboratory that designed the actual bombs. The Army component of the project was designated the Manhattan District; “Manhattan” gradually superseded the official codename, Development of Substitute Materials, for the entire project. Along the way, the project absorbed its earlier British counterpart, Tube Alloys. The Manhattan Project began modestly in 1939, but grew to employ more than 130,000 people and cost nearly US $2 billion (about $27 billion in 2016 dollars). Over 90% of the cost was for building factories and to produce fissile material, with less than 10% for development and production of the weapons. Research and production took place at more than 30 sites across the United States, the United Kingdom, and Canada.

Two types of atomic bombs were developed concurrently during the war: a relatively simple gun-type fission weapon and a more complex implosion-type nuclear weapon. The Thin Man gun-type design proved impractical to use with plutonium so a simpler gun-type called Little Boy was developed that used uranium-235, an isotope that makes up only 0.7 percent of natural uranium. Chemically identical to the most common isotope, uranium-238, and with almost the same mass, it proved difficult to separate the two. Three methods were employed for uranium enrichment: electromagnetic, gaseous and thermal. Most of this work was performed at the Clinton Engineer Works at Oak Ridge, Tennessee.

In parallel with the work on uranium was an effort to produce plutonium. After the feasibility of the world’s first artificial nuclear reactor was demonstrated in Chicago at the Metallurgical Laboratory, it designed the X-10 Graphite Reactor at Oak Ridge and the production reactors in Hanford, Washington, in which uranium was irradiated and transmuted into plutonium. The plutonium was then chemically separated from the uranium. The Fat Man implosion-type weapon was developed in a concerted design and development effort by the Los Alamos Laboratory.

The project was also charged with gathering intelligence on the German nuclear weapon project. Through Operation Alsos, Manhattan Project personnel served in Europe, sometimes behind enemy lines, where they gathered nuclear materials and documents, and rounded up German scientists. Despite the Manhattan Project’s tight security, Soviet atomic spies still penetrated the program.

The first nuclear device ever detonated was an implosion-type bomb at the Trinity test, conducted at New Mexico’s Alamogordo Bombing and Gunnery Range on 16 July 1945. Little Boy and Fat Man bombs were used a month later in the atomic bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki, respectively. In the immediate postwar years, the Manhattan Project conducted weapons testing at Bikini Atoll as part of Operation Crossroads, developed new weapons, promoted the development of the network of national laboratories, supported medical research into radiology and laid the foundations for the nuclear navy. It maintained control over American atomic weapons research and production until the formation of the United States Atomic Energy Commission in January 1947.

The Shuttle–Mir Program was a collaborative space program between Russia and the United States, which involved American Space Shuttles visiting the Russian space station Mir, Russian cosmonauts flying on the shuttle, and an American astronaut flying aboard a Soyuz spacecraft to engage in long-duration expeditions aboard Mir.

The project, sometimes called “Phase One”, was intended to allow the United States to learn from Russian experience with long-duration spaceflight and to foster a spirit of cooperation between the two nations and their space agencies, the US National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA) and the Russian Federal Space Agency (Roskosmos). The project helped to prepare the way for further cooperative space ventures; specifically, “Phase Two” of the joint project, the construction of the International Space Station (ISS). The program was announced in 1993, the first mission started in 1994 and the project continued until its scheduled completion in 1998. Eleven Space Shuttle missions, a joint Soyuz flight and almost 1000 cumulative days in space for American astronauts occurred over the course of seven long-duration expeditions.

During the four-year program, many firsts in spaceflight were achieved by the two nations, including the first American astronaut to launch aboard a Soyuz spacecraft, the largest spacecraft ever to have been assembled at that time in history, and the first American spacewalk using a Russian Orlan spacesuit.

The program was marred by various concerns, notably the safety of Mir following a fire and a collision, financial issues with the cash-strapped Russian Space Program and worries from astronauts about the attitudes of the program administrators. Nevertheless, a large amount of science, expertise in space station construction and knowledge in working in a cooperative space venture was gained from the combined operations, allowing the construction of the ISS to proceed much more smoothly than would have otherwise been the case.

Start date: May 31, 1864
End date: Jun 12, 1864

Date: 1943

Album: I Never Loved a Man the Way I Love You
Artists: Aretha Franklin · Otis Redding
Duration: 2:21
Genre: R&B / Soul, Soul

Lived: Aug 06, 1928 – Feb 22, 1987 (age 58)
Height: 5′ 11″ (1.80 m)
Periods: Pop art · Modern art
Education: Carnegie Mellon University (1945 – 1949) · Schenley High School (1942 – 1945)
Buried: St. John the Baptist Byzantine Catholic Cemetery
Parents: Julia Warhola (Mother) · Andrej Warhola (Father)

Born: Jan 06, 1799 · Bainbridge, NY
Died: May 27, 1831 · Ulysses, KS
Romance: NN Smith
Parents: Sally Smith (Mother) · Jedediah Strong Smith, I (Father)
Children: Gordon Smith (Son)
Siblings: Austin Smith · Peter Smith · Ira Smith

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Highlights

• 1822: Coming from a modest family background, Smith traveled to St. Louis and joined William H. Ashley and Andrew Henry’s fur trading company in 1822.


• 1826: Smith and his party of 15 other men left the Bear River on August 7, 1826, and after retrieving the cache he had left earlier, headed south through present-day Utah and Nevada to the Colorado River, finding increasingly harsh conditions and difficult travel.


• 1828: Smith and his party of 15 other men left the Bear River on August 7, 1826, and after retrieving the cache he had left earlier, headed south through present-day Utah and Nevada to the Colorado River, finding increasingly harsh conditions and difficult travel.


• 1829: Late in 1829, Smith Jackson and Sublette wrote another letter to William Clark.


• 1830: Smith later wrote a letter to Secretary of War John Eaton in 1830 making the location of the South Pass public information.


• 1831: The only known portrait of Jedediah Smith, painted after his death in 1831, showed the long hair he wore over the side of his head, to hide his scars.

Start date: May 27, 1905
End date: May 28, 1905

Lived: Jan 26, 1917 – Jul 02, 2014 (age 97)
Height: 5′ 11″ (1.80 m)
Spouse: Cynthia Applewhite (m. 1946 – 2001)
Movies: Zamperini: Still Carrying the Torch
Education: Torrance High School · University of Southern California
Children: Cissy Zamperini (Daughter) · Luke Zamperini (Son)

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Highlights

• 1943: His death had mistakenly been announced previously, when the US government classified him as KIA during World War II, after his B-24 Liberator aircraft went down in 1943, and no survivors were located by the military.


• 1946: Louis Zamperini married Cynthia Applewhite on May 25, 1946; their marriage lasted 55 years till 2001.


• 2010: In 2010, Zamperini detailed his experiences in Unbroken: A World War II Story of Survival, Resilience, and Redemption, written by Laura Hillenbrand.


• 2011: In May 2011, Zamperini was guest of honor at Magellan Christian Academy’s graduation ceremony with over 700 attendees at the University of North Florida in Jacksonville, Florida.


• 2011: In late July 2011, Zamperini received the Kappa Sigma Golden Heart Award during the Kappa Sigma 68th Biennial Grand Conclave held at the Flamingo Casino in Las Vegas, Nevada.


• 2014: After Zamperini’s death on July 2, 2014, the Tournament announced that it is “committed to honoring him as the Grand Marshal of the 2015 Rose Parade”.

Lived: Dec 11, 1918 – Aug 03, 2008 (age 89)
Spouse: Natalia Dmitrievna Svetlova (m. 1973 – 2008) · Natalia Alekseevna Reshetovskaya (m. 1957 – 1972) · Natalia Alekseevna Reshetovskaya (m. 1940 – 1952)
Awards: Nobel Prize in Literature (1970) · State Prize of the Russian Federation (2006) · Templeton Prize (1983)
Education: Southern Federal University · Rostov State University
Children: Ignat Solzhenitsyn (Son) · Stepan Solzhenitsyn (Son) · Yermolai Solzhenitsyn (Son)
Parents: Taisiya Solzhenitsyna (Mother) · Isaakiy Solzhenitsyn (Father)

Start date: 1801
End date: Apr 30, 1803

Lived: Apr 20, 1889 – Apr 30, 1945 (age 56)
Height: 5′ 9″ (1.75 m)
Spouse: Eva Braun (m. 1945 – 1945)
Children: Jean-Marie Loret (Son)
Founded: Nazi Party · Schutzstaffel · Hitler Youth · Gestapo · Sturmabteilung · Wehrmacht · Waffen-SS · 1st SS Panzer Division Leibstandarte SS Adolf Hitler
Parents: Alois Hitler (Father) · Klara Hitler (Mother)

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Highlights

• 1918: His wartime experience reinforced his German patriotism and he was shocked by Germany’s capitulation in November 1918.


• 1923: On 8 November 1923 Hitler and the SA stormed a public meeting of 3,000 people organised by Kahr in the Bürgerbräukeller, a beer hall in Munich.


• 1934: In August 1934, Hitler appointed Reichsbank President Hjalmar Schacht as Minister of Economics, and in the following year, as Plenipotentiary for War Economy in charge of preparing the economy for war.


• 1936: In August 1936, in response to a growing economic crisis caused by his rearmament efforts, Hitler ordered Göring to implement a Four Year Plan to prepare Germany for war within the next four years.


• 1938: In early 1938, in the wake of the Blomberg–Fritsch Affair, Hitler asserted control of the military-foreign policy apparatus, dismissing Neurath as foreign minister and appointing himself Oberster Befehlshaber der Wehrmacht (supreme commander of the armed forces).


• 1945: In the final days of the war, during the Battle of Berlin in 1945, Hitler married his long-time lover, Eva Braun.

Date: Apr 30, 1975

Start date: Apr 19, 1775
End date: Sep 03, 1783

First occurred: Apr 19, 1897

Start date: Apr 19, 1943
End date: May 16, 1943

The Oklahoma City bombing was a domestic terrorist truck bombing on the Alfred P. Murrah Federal Building in Downtown, Oklahoma City, Oklahoma, United States on April 19, 1995. Carried out by Timothy McVeigh and Terry Nichols, the bombing destroyed one-third of the building, killed 168 people, and injured more than 680 others. The blast destroyed or damaged 324 other buildings within a 16-block radius, shattered glass in 258 nearby buildings, and destroyed or burned 86 cars, causing an estimated $652 million worth of damage. Extensive rescue efforts were undertaken by local, state, federal, and worldwide agencies in the wake of the bombing, and substantial donations were received from across the country. The Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA) activated eleven of its Urban Search and Rescue Task Forces, consisting of 665 rescue workers who assisted in rescue and recovery operations. This was the deadliest terrorist attack on American soil until the September 11 attacks six years later, and it still remains as the deadliest domestic terrorism incident in United States history.

Within 90 minutes of the explosion, McVeigh was stopped by Oklahoma Highway Patrolman Charlie Hanger for driving without a license plate and arrested for illegal weapons possession. Forensic evidence quickly linked McVeigh and Nichols to the attack; Nichols was arrested, and within days, both were charged. Michael and Lori Fortier were later identified as accomplices. McVeigh, who was a U.S. militia movement sympathizer and a veteran in the Gulf War, had detonated a Ryder rental truck full of explosives parked in front of the building. His co-conspirator, Nichols, had assisted in the bomb preparation. Motivated by his dislike for the U.S. federal government and angry about its handling of the Ruby Ridge incident in 1992 and the Waco Siege in 1993, McVeigh timed his attack to coincide with the second anniversary of the deadly fire that ended the siege at the Branch Davidian compound in Waco, Texas.

The official investigation, known as “OKBOMB”, saw FBI agents conduct 28,000 interviews, amass 3.5 short tons (3.2 tonnes) of evidence, and collect nearly one billion pieces of information. The bombers were tried and convicted in 1997. McVeigh was executed by lethal injection on June 11, 2001, and Nichols was sentenced to life in prison in 2004. Michael and Lori Fortier testified against McVeigh and Nichols; Michael was sentenced to 12 years in prison for failing to warn the United States government, and Lori received immunity from prosecution in exchange for her testimony.

As a result of the bombing, the U.S. Congress passed the Antiterrorism and Effective Death Penalty Act of 1996, which tightened the standards for habeas corpus in the United States, as well as legislation designed to increase the protection around federal buildings to deter future terrorist attacks. On April 19, 2000, the Oklahoma City National Memorial was dedicated on the site of the Murrah Federal Building, commemorating the victims of the bombing. Annual remembrance services are held at the same time of day as the explosion occurred.

Date: Apr 19, 1995
Fatalities: 168