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Discovery of nuclear reactions brought about by slow neutrons.
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Enrico Fermi's team produces the world's first sustained nuclear chain reaction.
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Chicago Pile 2 achieves criticality. It was CP-1, Fermi's first reactor, dismantled and reassembled at the Argonne Forest site in the Cook Country Forest Preserve.
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Argonne's birthday: The University of Chicago accepts a letter contract to operate an Argonne National Laboratory, as yet unnamed and not officially in existence.
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The name of the Manhattan Engineering District's Metallurgical Laboratory is officially changed to Argonne National Laboratory, with Walter Zinn as director.
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University of Chicago signs a contract to operate Argonne.
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The AEC authorizes Argonne to design and build a liquid-metal-cooled, fast-neutron reactor. Alternately referred to as "Chicago Pile 4" and "Zinn's Infernal Pile," it becomes EBR-I.
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Argonne holds its first open house to show off Chicago Pile 5, the nation's newest nuclear reactor.
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Maria Goeppert Mayer receives the Nobel Prize in physics.
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An article in Science magazine by Argonne biologists reports the development of the first automated system for continuous growth of human cells in culture. The system is used to grow cancer cells for research.
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The first Argonne Science Bowl is held.
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The Argonne News reports that Argonne ranks in the top 10 materials science research facilities in terms of "high-impact" papers on the subject, according to Science Watch newsletter.
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The Argonne News reports the opening of a new Women In Science and Technology exhibit at the Argonne Information Center. The new exhibit highlights the careers of some of Argonne's major women scientists.
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Theories about how matter can show bizarre behavior at extremely low tempratures.
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Argonne scientist Alexei Abrikosov receives the Nobel Prize for Physics.
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Argonne helps renovate the test procedures for all-electric vehicles, in order to make the mile-per-gallon comparisons more accurate with electric cars.
