The University was founded in 1868 when the private College of California and the public Agricultural, Mining, and Mechanical Arts College merged. Berkeley was a founding member of the Association of American Universities and 61 Nobel Laureates have been affiliated with the university as faculty, researchers and alumni. Berkeley physicists worked on the Manhattan Project during World War II and the university now manages the nation's two principal nuclear weapons laboratories: "Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory" and "Los Alamos National Laboratory".