The history of the Manhattan Project in 4,000 words, one footnote, and a half-dozen asides

The Manhattan project is one of the most fascinating feats of human science and engineering. In a time where science was doing so much, technology was advancing so far, it continued to be thrown into the war machine every step of the way. Every time people said of new technologies; “War is over. No one would be terrible enough to fight, knowing this weapon exists.” At the Trinity test site, a bunch of scientists prayed that this time, this time, they had finally made a weapon too terrible to use, else they had destroyed our species.