This arms race all started with The U.S’s Manhattan Project. This project was used to exploit the power of nuclear fission, the act of splitting the nucleus of an atom, such as Uranium or Plutonium, in half, which releases a large amount of energy. The Manhattan Project was formed in 1942, and ended in 1945. The original funding for the scientist’s working to create a fission bomb was six thousand dollars, but as the conflicts in Europe progressed, the funding grew to two million dollars. The very first nuclear bomb was detonated on July 16, 1945, in New Mexico . A month later, A Uranium bomb, and a Plutonium bomb were detonated in