On Aug. 26, 1952, Founders Day marks the date that Ernest Lawrence received permission to open up a lab to pursue his studies of particle acceleration. The University of California Radiation Laboratory, now known as the Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory (LLNL) was founded as part of the UC Berkeley Radiation Laboratory on the one-square-mile site of a World War II naval air training station.

The Livermore Lab was renamed Lawrence Radiation Laboratory in 1958 after the death of E. O. Lawrence. In 1963, the Atomic Energy Commission launched its first biomedical and environmental research program at Livermore to study the effects of radiation on humans.