| Movie Review | The Journal of American History, 93.3

You have not been recognized as a subscriber to JAH online. About 293 words from this article are provided below; about 413 words remain.

If you are a individual member of the Organization of American Historians, you may:: • login here if you have already registered for online access.; • Or if you're already logged in register your subscription.
• Set up your online account for the first time.
If you are not a member of the Organization of American Historians, you can:: • Join the OAH and receive many member benefits including print and electronic issues of the Journal of American History.
• Purchase a research pass to gain two-hour access to the entire History Cooperative web site. You will have full access to current issues of the Journal of American History (86.1-present). Note: the Research Pass does not provide access to JSTOR's holdings of the Journal of American History.
Instititutions can:: • Subscribe to this journal and receive print and electronic issues.
• Activate your existing subscription so that we recognize your IP number ranges.

| Movie Review | The Journal of American History, 93.3 | The History Cooperative

Movie Reviews

Ten Days That Unexpectedly Changed America: Einstein's Letter. Dir. and prod. by Barak Goodman and John Maggio. History Channel, 2006. 60 mins. (A&E Home Video, P.O. Box 2284, South Burlington, VT 05407; 888-423-1212; http://www.store.aetv.com/)
Leo Szilard had a dream. As a boy in Budapest, reading H. G. Wells's novel about a nuclear war that destroys most of Europe's cities (The Last War, 1914), he concluded that the world should be governed by a group of gifted scientists. He envisioned the development of atomic energy as both a limitless power source and a weapon that might force nations into peace. Devoting his life to that end—living in hotels, doing his thinking in bathtubs—he hit on the idea of an atomic chain reaction, filing the patent in 1934.	1
In 1939, faced with the possibility that Adolf Hitler might develop an atomic bomb, Szilard, who had fled Germany in 1933, convinced Albert Einstein to send a letter to Franklin D. Roosevelt advising him that a nuclear bomb might be possible. In a room beneath the stadium stands at the University of Chicago, Szilard built a reactor and achieved a controlled chain reaction, proving that a bomb was feasible. He called it "a black day in the history of mankind." Shunned by the military as a suspect foreigner, he had Einstein sign a second letter to Roosevelt in which Szilard threatened to publish his results unless the project was funded. Ironically, Roosevelt approved the Manhattan Project the day before the attack on Pearl Harbor. As the project moved forward, Szilard and Einstein had a change of heart, sending a third letter to fdr pleading with him not to use the bomb. But Roosevelt died before the letter reached him.	. . .

There are about 413 more words in this article. Please log in (or, if you are not yet an authorized user, please go to the User Setup page) to gain full access rights. Or if you're already logged in register your subscription.