On Sept. 2, 1952, the University of California Radiation Laboratory, now known as the Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory (LLNL) was founded as part of the University of California, Berkeley Radiation Laboratory on the one-square-mile site of a World War II naval air training station. In 1958, after the death of E. O. Lawrence, the Livermore Lab was renamed Lawrence Radiation Laboratory.

In 1963, the Atomic Energy Commission launched its first biomedical and environmental research program at Livermore to study the effects of radiation on humans.<./p>