The European Organization for Nuclear Research (CERN ) announced that for the first time on Tuesday November 24th 1959 at 7.40 p.m., reached its designed energy - producing a beam of protons of an energy of 24 thousand million electronvolt. This is the culmination of 6 year's work of design and construction at the CERN laboratories at Geneva. The machine, 200 meters across and the most powerful in the world, justified its designers and the faith of the 12 nations of Western Europe who came together six years earlier to form CERN. On the following day an announcement was made to the staff by C. .J. Bakker, Director-General, and J.B. Adams, leader of the construction team, of the first operation of the PS.