World War II Database

Contributor: C. Peter Chen

ww2dbaseHaroutune Krikor Daghlian, Jr. was born in Waterbury, Connecticut, United States to Haroutune Krikor Daghlian, Sr. and Margaret Rose Daghlian (née Currie). His family moved to New London, Connecticut while Daghlian was still at a young age. He attended Harbor Elementary School and the Bulkeley School in New London before attending the Massachusetts Institute of Technology in Cambridge, Massachusetts, United States in 1938, studying mathematics. Before completing the program, his interest changed toward physics, thus he transferred to Purdue University in West Lafayette, Indiana, United States, where he would obtain his undergraduate degree in 1942. In 1944, as a student studying toward a doctorate degree, he joined the Manhattan Project at Los Alamos, New Mexico, United States under the leadership of Otto Frisch. On 21 Aug 1945, while attempting to build a neutron reflector by manually stacking 4.4-kilogram tungsten carbide bricks around a plutonium core, he accidentally dropped the last brick onto the core. Although he was able to disassemble the pile, he was not able to do so before receiving a lethal dose of radiation. He passed away less than a month later.

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