Naval Research Laboratory

The Naval Research Laboratory, Washington, D.C., celebrated on July 2, 1948 the twenty‐fifth anniversary of its founding. Proposed in 1915 by Thomas A. Edison and other members of the Naval Consulting Board, the Laboratory's opening was delayed by World War I until July 2, 1923. Its original research program, which included only two divisions, Radio and Sound, has grown to require three divisions for Radio alone, and one each for Sound, Optics, Mechanics, Metallurgy, Chemistry, Electricity, and Nucleonics, with an operating force of 3,000 men and women.