As soon as it was confirmed, people started shooting neutrons at various things. In 1938 they were shooting them at Uranium to try to produce trans-Uranium elem

As soon as it was confirmed, people started shooting neutrons at various things. In 1938 they were shooting them at Uranium to try to produce trans-Uranium elements. When they found Barium instead of transuranium, it was discovered that sometimes Uranium fissions, releasing an astounding 200 million electron-Volts of energy per reaction. Soon after, it was confirmed that Uranium fission releases enough secondary neutrons to cause a chain reaction if Uranium atoms are placed close enough together, meaning it should be possible to make a runaway fission chain reaction, aka an atomic bomb. Einstein was relied upon to raise the alarm to the US military, and by December 1942, Fermi had a chain reaction running in a squash court in Chicago (Chicago Pile 1). Uranium enrichment efforts at Oak Ridge, TN and plutonium production efforts in Hanford, WA (using the world's first high-power reactors) ramp up. Bomb engineering occurs at Los Alamos, NM. July 16, 1945 a Plutonium implosion bomb is tested: the Trinity shot. On Aug 6 and 9, the US drops atomic bombs on Japan. By the 1950s, people are using chain reactions for peace: medicine, industry, energy, space travel. Other things were tried but abandoned: nuclear excavation, commercial nuclear propulsion, nuclear explosive fracking, you name it! Today ~70% of the carbon free energy produced in the USA comes from commercial nuclear chain reactors. It's kind of crazy how things went after the neutron was discovered.