During World War II, East Tennessee was chosen for the production of weapons-grade fissile enriched uranium as part of the Manhattan Project, a research and development undertaking led by the U.S. to produce the world's first atomic bombs. The planned community of Oak Ridge was built to provide accommodations for the facilities and workers; the site was chosen due to the abundance of TVA electric power, its low population density, and its inland geography and topography, which allowed for the natural separation of the facilities and a low vulnerability to attack. The Clinton Engineer Works was established as the production arm of the Manhattan Project in Oak Ridge, which enriched uranium at three major facilities for use in atomic bombs. The first of the bombs was detonated in Los Alamos, New Mexico, in a test code-named Trinity, and the second, nicknamed "Little Boy", was dropped on Imperial Japan at the end of World War II. After the war, the Oak Ridge National Laboratory became an institution for scientific and technological research.
