Monday, December 9, 2024

Question: Which Tennessee city is known as Atomic City?

Answer: Oak Ridge. On August 6 and 9, 1945, the U.S. dropped atomic bombs on the Japanese cities of Hiroshima and Nagasaki. Soon after the first bomb was dropped, the local newspaper in Oak Ridge ran the banner headline, “Oak Ridge Attacks Japan.”

Unknown to the rest of the country—and to most of the people living in Oak Ridge—the so-called “Secret City” was at the epicenter of the Manhattan Project, the American-led effort to build an atomic bomb.