The mayor of a New Zealand city has rubbished an eyebrow-raising claim made by President Donald Trump during his wild inauguration speech.

The tale of splitting the atom isn't just about America—it's a journey from New Zealand to Manchester, led by the brilliant mind of Ernest Rutherford, the true father of nuclear physics.

After President Trump's claim, a mayor in New Zealand pointed out that work to split the atom was actually pioneered by physicist Ernest Rutherford.

A New Zealand mayor has invited the American ambassador for a history lesson, after US President Donald Trump appeared to imply it was the US that split the atom – which it is not alone in and certainly wasn't the first to do. During Trump's inauguration, he listed off a number of achievements by Americans in the past.

WELLINGTON, New Zealand (AP) — Among other false and misleading claims in U.S. President Donald Trump ’s inauguration addresses on Tuesday, his declaration that Americans “split the atom” prompted vexed social media posts by New Zealanders, who said the achievement belonged to a pioneering scientist revered in his homeland.

Donald Trump angered New Zealanders on his first day in office when he asserted that America split the atom, something that Sir Ernest Rutherford accomplished.

Ernest Rutherford, a Nobel Prize winner known as the father of nuclear physics, is regarded by many ... John Douglas Cockroft and Ireland's Ernest Walton, researchers in 1932 at a British ...