Introduction

Teacher Resources

Timeline

Video Outline

Classroom Activities

Glossary

Cold War I

The Berlin Crisis

Bay of Pigs

Yalta

Timeline of Igor Kurchatov's Life

See http://www.pbs.org/opb/citizenk/index.html for a complete timeline of the American and Soviet atomic programs.

Student

January 8, 1903: Igor Kurchatov is born in Simskii Zavod in the Ural Mountains. His father is a surveyor and his mother is a teacher.

1912: In the hopes of improving their daughter's health, Kurchatov's family moves to Simferopol in Crimea -- but she dies of TB.

1920: Kurchatov enters Crimea University to study physics and mathematics to become an engineer.

1923: Kurchatov graduates a year early, then goes to Petrograd to study shipbuilding at Polytechnical Institute.

1923: Kurchatov gets a job at Pavlovsk Observatory and publishes his first scientific paper on the radioactivity of snow.

1924: Because of his father's exile, Kurchatov moves home to support his family.

Science and War

1925: Kurchatov goes to work at main Soviet center for nuclear physics; Kurchatov establishes his scientific reputation by discovering ferroelectricity.

1927: Kurchatov marries Marina Dmitrievna Sinelnikova.

1932: Kurchatov decides to switch to nuclear physics.

September 1933: Kurchatov attends All-Union conference on the atomic nucleus. He and his team build a cyclotron. When the USSR enters World War II, Kurchatov works on protecting Soviet ships from magnetic mines. Kurchatov is selected to head the effort to build an atomic bomb. Working with only 100 on his team, Kurchatov goes over his supervisor's head and writes to Lavrenti Beria, head of the Soviet secret police, asking for support.

Building the Bomb

August 1945: After the explosion of the American atomic bomb on Hiroshima, Stalin tells Kurchatov to build a Soviet atomic weapon within three years.

October 1945: Spies gain American atomic secrets and show them to Beria.

April 1946: Soviet atomic project is started at Arzamas-16. Soviet scientists believe that their work is necessary to prevent American domination of the world.

November 10, 1946: Kurchatov begins building first full-scale nuclear reactor.

December 1946: Kurchatov successfully shows Beria a prototype plutonium reactor. Beria threatens to turn Kurchatov and his fellow scientists "into camp dust" if they are unsuccessful at creating an atomic bomb.

December 31, 1946: Soviet spies share American hydrogen bomb secrets with Soviets.

June 7, 1948: Soviet Union is able to produce plutonium.

July 1948: Andrei Sakharov develops layer cake theory for hydrogen bomb.

August 29, 1949: First successful test of a Soviet atomic bomb. Kurchatov and his fellow scientists are awarded the Stalin Prize for their achievement.

September 1951: Improved Soviet plutonium bombs, "Joe 1" and "Joe 2," are exploded.

After Stalin

March 5, 1953: Stalin dies.

March 20, 1953: Khrushchev becomes head of Soviet Union.

August 12, 1953: The Soviets test their first hydrogen bomb.

December 23, 1953: Khrushchev orders Beria to be arrested for crimes against the state. Beria is tried in absentia and killed.

May 10, 1955: The Soviet Union agrees to UN proposal for nuclear disarmament.

November 22, 1955: Soviet Union's first test of a thermonuclear bomb.

February 1956: Kurchatov delivers speech at 20th Party Congress, promoting civilian uses of nuclear energy.

April 1956: Kurchatov visits Great Britain with Khrushchev and shares some Soviet nuclear research.

1957: A plutonium waste plant explosion is blamed on Kurchatov.

1958: Kurchatov has a growth removed near his collar bone.

February 1960: Kurchatov dies.