Known to music lovers as the capital of country and a birthplace of the blues, Tennessee has a history of creativity — and not just in music. In 1943, more than a decade before Elvis Presley entered a Memphis studio to record his first hit, some of the greatest scientists of the twentieth century converged in secret in the hills of Oak Ridge, Tennessee, to develop the atomic bomb. One of four major sites of the Manhattan Project, the Oak Ridge facility harnessed the abundant hydroelectric power of the Tennessee Valley Authority to enrich uranium for weapons. Now the research focus of Oak Ridge National Laboratory has shifted from weapons development to a variety of other energy-related topics. Bioscience is also burgeoning in the state, which is home to several major universities including Vanderbilt University in Nashville and five campuses of the University of Tennessee, as well as the world-renowned St Jude Children's Research Hospital in Memphis.

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