During the War
Einstein, being a scientist and not actually participating in any fighting, was a civilian who had a major impact in the war. His involvement helped the U.S. end the war with an atomic bomb drop on Japan. First, Einstein wrote a letter to president Roosevelt a month before Germany invaded Poland and started World War II. Einstein warned FDR about the potential destructive power of a nuclear weapon. He urged president Roosevelt to fund a project to develop an atomic bomb, before Nazi Germany did. Roosevelt took right to Einstein's warning and gathered thousands of scientists from the U.S., Britain, and Canada to collaborate on the development, called the Manhattan Project, which was kept top secret from other countries. Einstein helped the development drastically with discovering the equation E=mc^2. The atom bomb came too late to effect the war in Europe, but fighting was still breaking out in the Pacific and Japan. after Japan showed no signs of giving up and the U.S. didn't want to lose any more soldiers' lives to an invasion of mainland Japan, the U.S. used the atomic bomb and ended the war. Einstein got involved in the war effort because he was recruited by a group of scientist who needed him to sign a paper to get president Roosevelt's attention about nuclear war and it's dangers. Also, Einstein pushed for the development of the nuclear weapon to help the Allied forces to stop Nazi Germany from expanding throughout Europe.