Nelson, New Zealand, Mayor Nick Smith corrected President Donald Trump’s inaugural speech when it came to who gets credit for splitting the atom.
Trump made a claim Monday that an American split the first atom, which was immediately disputed by New Zealanders. The president was attempting to rally national pride in his speech when he mentioned the accomplishment.
“Americans pushed thousands of miles through a rugged land of untamed wilderness,” Trump said. “They crossed deserts, scaled mountains, braved untold dangers, won the Wild West, ended slavery, rescued millions from tyranny, lifted billions 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.”
“I was a bit surprised by new President Donald Trump in his inauguration speech about US greatness claiming today Americans ‘split the atom’ when that honour belongs to Nelson’s most famous and favourite son Sir Ernest Rutherford,” Smith wrote on Facebook. “Rutherford, born in Brightwater, raised in Foxhill and Havelock and educated at Nelson College and Canterbury University went on to split the atom in 1917 at Victoria University in Manchester in the UK.”
The Washington Examiner reached out to the White House for comment.
Smith said Rutherford first crafted “a nuclear reaction by bombarding nitrogen nuclei with alpha particles” and that he deserved credit. While Trump has not nominated a U.S. ambassador to New Zealand, Smith extended an invitation to the person who will assume the role.
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“I will be inviting the US Ambassador to NZ (when appointed by the President) to Nelson to visit the Lord Rutherford Memorial in Brightwater so we can keep the historic record on who split the atom first accurate,” Smith wrote.
Former Sen. Scott Brown was Trump’s last ambassador to New Zealand, and Samoa was lumped into his delegation. Trump has nominated Kimberly Guilfoyle as the ambassador to Greece, former Sen. David Perdue to China, former Gov. Mike Huckabee to Israel, Warren Stephens to the United Kingdom, and Charles Kushner to France.
