Trump vexes New Zealanders by claiming one of their proudest historical moments for America
President Donald Trump’s false declaration that Americans “split the atom” has vexed New Zealanders who say the achievement belongs to one of their scientists.
WELLINGTON, New Zealand — Among other false and misleading claims in President Donald Trump’s inaugural address, his declaration that Americans “split the atom” prompted vexed social media posts by New Zealanders, who said the achievement belonged to a pioneering scientist revered in his homeland.
Ernest Rutherford, a Nobel Prize winner known as the father of nuclear physics, is regarded by many as the first to knowingly split the atom by artificially inducing a nuclear reaction in 1917 while he worked at a university in Manchester, England.
The achievement is also credited to English scientist John Douglas Cockroft and Ireland’s Ernest Walton, researchers in 1932 at a British laboratory developed by Rutherford. It is not attributed to Americans.
Describing U.S. greatness in his inaugural address on Monday, Trump said Americans “crossed deserts, scaled mountains, braved untold dangers, won the Wild West, ended slavery, rescued millions from tyranny, lifted millions from poverty, harnessed electricity, split the atom, launched mankind into the heavens and put the universe of human knowledge into the palm of the human hand.”
New Zealand politician Nick Smith, the mayor of Nelson, where Rutherford was born and educated, said he was “a bit surprised” by the claim.
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