Modern Marvels: The Manhattan Project (2002)

This History Channel overview of the Manhattan Project provides a time capsule of the conception, engineering challenges, and sociopolitical impact of the invention of the atomic bomb, which decisively ended the cataclysm that was World War II. It begins with the unsung hero, Leo Szilard, who with Enrico Fermi patented the process of nuclear fission before he (with the help of Albert Einstein) convinced FDR to authorize the development of a nuclear weapon before Germany and persuaded his colleagues to self-censor their research in case it should lend an advantage to the Nazis. In a balanced fashion, this program details the rapid construction of the massive industrial complex (which used 10% of the nation's electric capacity) centered on developing the bomb in secret in addition to the handful of men charged with introducing the world to the dawn of the nuclear age. The humanity and suffering of Japan's nuclear victims receives attention but not without noting the ferocity of Japan's aggression and tenacity in addition to the ultimate calculus of casualties and the penultimate perspective of history. IW. 4 stars.