One day before America entered World War II with the bombing of Pearl Harbor, the Manhattan Project officially began with President Franklin D. Roosevelt's approval over the objections of some scientists including Albert Einstein. J. Robert Oppenheimer was the project's scientific director. On July 16, 1945, the worlds' first atomic detonation takes place in the 'Trinity Test' at Alamogordo, New Mexico.

Women on both sides of the ocean were fighting for the right to vote at the same time. In Great Britain, women such as Emmeline Pankhurst who died on July 14, 1858, suffered imprisonment and more as she protested for her cause. In America, the women's suffrage movement was often closely related to the Abolition movement. Even though women were fighting for their right to vote in the U.S. through the second half of the 19th century beginning with the Seneca Falls Convention, they did not get the right to vote in federal elections until 1920 with the passage of the 19th amendment.