On this day in 1942: First controlled nuclear reaction

Site of the first controlled nuclear reaction, Univ. of Chicago 

"On December 2, 1942, man achieved here the first self-sustaining chain reaction and thereby initiated the controlled release of nuclear energy." So says the plaque below the sculpture, appropriately named "Nuclear Energy," on the campus of the University of Chicago.

Three years later the science mastered by Enrico Fermi and his team on Chicago's South Side--under the stands of the old Stagg Field--was used for the Hiroshima and Nagasaki atomic bombs that ended World War II.

In 1986, Chicago's City Council declared the city a Nuclear Weapon Free Zone.

Chicago has lost its way, that's for sure.

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