BC / ADBCE / CE

1942 CE–1945 CE

Manhattan Project, nuclear weapons, and emergent deterrence

War & military technology · Armas nucleares · Ciencia y guerra · Industria militar · Disuasión

From 1942, the Manhattan Engineer District organized a secret infrastructure bringing together science, industry, labour, and military command to produce the first nuclear weapons. Their use in 1945 opened an unprecedented strategic problem; nuclear deterrence developed as a system and doctrinal language chiefly after the war, so this entry treats it here as an emerging possibility, not an already settled doctrine or a sole explanation for the war’s end.

Precision, calendar, and review
Start
year · no uncertainty qualifier in this record
End
year · no uncertainty qualifier in this record
Calendar and convention
Historical-era years; the source calendar is not identified. No conversion of days is assumed.
Year zero
The scale goes from 1 BCE to 1 CE without year zero. Changing era names changes labels only.
Documentary review
Date not recorded

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Sources

  1. www.energy.gov (opens in a new tab)
    Source provenance and scope
    Publication date
    2025-06-13
    What this date describes
    The cited source or edition; it may postdate the historical event.
    Source updated
    2025-06-13
    Bibliographic date checked
    2026-09-23
    Date evidence
    Declared in the cited source’s publisher metadata.

    The correspondence between this reference and individual claims has not yet been itemized.

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