1940-49 || 1950-59 || 1960-69 || 1970-79 || 1980-89 || 1990-99 || 2000-present

Argonne Highlights: 1950-1959

1950

January 1 -- Hoylande Young is named Director of Technical Information, making her Argonne's first woman division director.

January 20 -- The Argonne Credit Union accepts its first membership applications.

February 20 -- The Argonne Credit Union Board meets for the first time.

July 1 -- Argonne opens its first administrative offices in Idaho.

1951

February 6 -- Newsman Paul Harvey is caught trying to breach Argonne's perimeter security.

June 6 -- The first issue of the Argonne News is published.

June 6 -- More than 1,600 employees of Argonne, the Atomic Energy Commission and University of Chicago and their families tour buildings 200 and 205 prior to their occupation.

June 19 -- The Grounds Services Division begins planting sod around the 200-area buildings.

December 20 -- Experimental Breeder Reactor 1 (EBR-I) produces the world's first usable amount of electricity from nuclear energy, lighting four electric light bulbs. EBR-I was originally referred to as CP-4 or "ZIP', short for "Zinn's Infernal Pile".

1952

March 31 -- The Materials Testing Reactor achieves first criticality at the National Reactor Testing Station.

June 2 -- Manual withdrawal of a control rod at Argonne's Naval Zero Power Reactor produces accidental criticality that over-exposes four people.

June 14 -- The keel is laid on the U.S.S. Nautilus, the world's first nuclear-powered submarine.

July 9 -- The 60-inch cyclotron arrives at Argonne-East's Building 211.

1953

January 28 -- AVIDAC, the lab's first digital computer, begins operation. It was designed and built by the Physics Division for $250,000.

March 16 -- The first of one million pine trees is planted, part of a three-year project that would eventually convert Argonne's Illinois site from farmland to forest.

March 30 -- The Navy's prototype pressurized-water reactor for the Nautilus achieves first criticality.

June 4 -- The Atomic energy Commission (AEC) announces that EBR-I has achieved the first demonstration of the breeding principle in a nuclear reactor.

July 10 -- Argonne's Patents Group completes its move from Chicago to Argonne's new DuPage site. It was the last group to complete the move.

August 15 -- The second annual picnic is held for Argonne's Idaho group. The date of the first picnic is not known.

December 8 -- President Dwight D. Eisenhower delivers his "Atoms for Peace" speech at the United Nations, proposing an international agency to promote peaceful uses of atomic energy.

1954

January 21 -- The U.S.S. Nautilus, the world's first nuclear-powered submarine is launched. Its power plant is based on concepts and designs developed by Argonne.

February 10 -- Chicago Pile 5 (CP-5) goes critical for the first time.

March 1 -- CP-5 produces first neutrons at full power.

March 20 -- Argonne holds its first open house to show off Chicago Pile 5, the nation's newest nuclear reactor.

April 15 -- An agreement is signed to form the Midwestern Universities Research Association to build and operate a large particle accelerator in the Midwest.

May 15 -- Argonne Director Walter Zinn presses a button to shut down CP-3, 10 years to the date after he started it. The same day, Chicago Pile 2, Fermi's reactor which had been moved to the Palos Park site, was shut down, and Site A was closed as an operating unit of the laboratory.

July 22 -- The BORAX I planned runaway results in a partial core meltdown.

August 30 -- President Eisenhower signs the Atomic Energy Act of l954, creating the civilian nuclear power program.

November 22 -- The Physics Building is declassified.

November 28 -- Enrico Fermi dies.

December 3 -- The CP-5 building (330) is declassified.

1955

January 1 -- The International School of Nuclear Science and Engineering is organized at Argonne to carry out the Atoms-for-Peace program. It opened March l4, l955.

February 24 -- Several buildings are declassified: Building 20, which houses Central Shops; Building 21, which houses the Electronics Division and the Remote Control Division; Buildings 23 and 24, soon to house the International School of Nuclear Science and Engineering; and Building 40, which houses part of the Chemistry Division.

March 14 -- Building 211, which houses the Chemistry Division's 60-inch cyclotron, is declassified.

March 14 -- Thirty-nine students from 19 foreign nations and the United States begin Argonne's first International School of Nuclear Science and Engineering.

March 29 -- Argonne is featured on the TV series, "March of Medicine."

April 5 -- Edward R. Morrow's "See it Now" features Argonne.

May 18 -- Patent 2,708,656 is issued to Enrico Fermi and Leo Szilard for Chicago Pile 1.

May 27 -- Ground is broken for the Experimental Boiling Water Reactor, the nation's first reactor built solely for research on electrical power generation.

June 9 -- BORAX III is placed in operation at the National Reactor Testing Station.

July 17 -- Arco, Idaho, population 1,200, becomes the world's first community to have all its electrical power provided by nuclear energy. The power was generated by Argonne's BORAX III reactor.

August 1 -- A paper in The Physical Review reports codiscovery of einsteinium and fermium, elements 99 and 100, respectively, by Argonne, Los Alamos Scientific Laboratory and the University of California, Berkeley. The elements were discovered during analysis of debris from a November 1952 thermonuclear explosion.

August 5 -- The Gamma Irradiation Facility begins operations in Building 310 for testing the effects of gamma radiation on food, chemicals and other substances.

October 12 -- The first class graduates from the International School of Nuclear Science and Engineering.

October 31 -- The Argonne Credit Union's assets top $1 million.

December 14 -- The Chemistry Building is declassified and workers begin dismantling its security fence.

December 15 -- Argonne's two cafeterias, one in Building 203 and the other in the Building 3 Quonset hut, serve "blue ribbon beef" straight from the International Live Stock Exposition in Chicago. About 1,200 pounds of beef are roasted that day. It was an annual event.

1956

February 6 -- The AEC assigns Argonne responsibility for design and development of a low-power nuclear reactor for military use.

February 17 -- The AEC authorizes Argonne to design and develop a multi-billion-volt proton accelerator for the Illinois site. The facility will eventually become the Zero-Gradient Synchrotron.

March 15 -- The AEC requests proposals for financing with private capital the design, construction and operation of a lodging facility at Argonne-East.

June 21 -- The Argonne Pool opens for the first time. Originally part of the Freund Estate, which the lab acquired in 1948, the pool was renovated for employee use. The nearby tennis court was also renovated and became available to employees around the same time.

June 30 -- Walter Zinn resigns as Argonne director.

August 1 -- Miss Hap is born, the unintended offspring of one of 36 rhesus monkeys bought by Argonne for biological research. She becomes something of a pet in Argonne Division of Biological and Medical Research.

December 1 -- Experimental Boiling Water Reactor achieves first criticality.

December 29 -- Experimental Boiling Water Reactor (EBWR) achieves first full-power operation.

1957

January 28 -- Argonne is featured on NBC's "Tonight After Dark."

February 9 -- Experimental Boiling Water Reactor is dedicated and begins continuous, full-power operation.

February 9 -- The Argonaut (Argonne Nuclear Assembly for University Training) reactor goes critical for the first time. This small reactor was built to teach reactor theory, nuclear physics and engineering laboratory experiments.

February 20 -- Norman Hilberry is named Argonne's second Director.

April 4 -- Seven natives of the Marshall Islands arrive at Argonne for measurements of their body levels of radioactivity. Six had been accidentally exposed to radioactive fallout following a nuclear weapons test March 1, 1954, at the Pacific Proving Grounds. The test found their body levels of radioactive materials to be far below those widely considered safe.

April 17 -- A short article by Argonne physicist W. Nelson Beck is received by The Journal of the Acoustical Society of America. Printed in the July 1957 issue, it is the first report of the discovery that ultrasound -- referred to as "an ultrasonic scanner and recording system" -- has medical applications in making images of bones inside the human body. The article is accompanied by history's first ultrasound image -- the bones of Beck's hand and forearm. Beck had been working with ultrasound as a non-destructive method for inspecting nuclear reactor fuel, when he was inspired to put his arm inside the device and tune it to form an image of his bones.

August 15 -- Demolition begins on the stands at the University of Chicago's Stagg Field, including the squash-racquets court where Fermi and his colleagues built Chicago P ile 1.

September 20 -- King Leopold of Belgium visits Argonne-East.

1958

February 4 -- Argonne-East's Guest Facility, now known as the Lodging Facility, opens for business.

February 4 -- Niels Bohr visits Argonne-East.

March 20 -- EBWR's output is increased to more than three times its original design maximum, demonstrating the possibility of significant reductions in nuclear power costs.

April 19 -- The Engineering Test Reactor reaches full power.

June 7 -- Nobel-Prize-winning author Pearl Buck visits Argonne for background research for her play "Three Against Time", about scientists in the 1940s.

June 10 -- The Associated Midwest Universities first meets at Argonne.

August 11 -- The Argonne Low Power Reactor achieves criticality at the National Reactor Testing Station, known today as the Idaho National Engineering Laboratory, in Idaho. It was a prototype for electric power and space heating at remote military stations.

November 5 -- Queen Frederika of Greece visits Argonne's Illinois site.

December 2 -- The Argonne Low Power Reactor is dedicated in Idaho.

December 11 -- U.S. Sen. Everett M. Dirksen of Ill. visits Argonne-East.

1959

February 23 -- The Transient Reactor Test Facility achieves first criticality in Idaho.

March 14 -- The World Flower Show opens in Chicago with several exhibits by Argonne scientists on using radioactive tracers to study plant metabolism.

May 14 -- The Fuel Fabrication Facility is dedicated in Building 350 in Illinois. It was the nation's first large-scale plant for making nuclear reactor fuel elements from plutonium. Today, it houses DOE's New Brunswick Laboratory.

June 27 -- Ground is broken for the Zero Gradient Synchrotron.

July 1 -- The High Energy Physics and Solid State Physics divisions are created.

August 27 -- An "atomic torch," designed and built by Argonne, lights the "Friendship Flame" that burns throughout the Aug. 27-Sept. 7 Pan American Games in Chicago.

October 29 -- The Argonne Fast Source Reactor achieves first criticality at National Reactor Testing Station. It was used to study fast reactor physics.

1940-49 || 1950-59 || 1960-69 || 1970-79 || 1980-89 || 1990-99 || 2000-present