Want to find out more about Bikini Atoll and Enewetak Atoll in the Marshall Islands? Call the National Cancer Benefits Center today at (800) 414-4328 or use our request for more information form.The English spelling of the word ‘marshall’ (as opposed to the American spelling of one ‘l’) means an officer connected to public security or, as a verb, to gather together a group of people. This time, you see the aftermath of the underwater atomic testing in this short, < 3-minute clip.
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More filmed footage from Operation Crossroads in the Marshall Islands in 1946. Department of the Navy.īikini Underwater Atomic Explosion Aftermath - 1946
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This documentary was produced by the U.S. Watch the 1982 cult classic documentary, The Atomic Cafe, a disturbing portrait of nuclear warfare in the 20th century.īikini Atoll Nuclear Tests Documentary – 1949įootage from Operation Crossroads in 1946, which included testing the effects of nuclear bombs on animals on Bikini Atoll in the Marshall Islands. Radio Bikini, a 1988 documentary by filmmaker Robert Stone, begins with a radio broadcast from Bikini Atoll before the nuclear bomb blasts and tells the story of servicemen exposed to radioactive fallout. Using Google Earth, this video illustrates the damage caused by the atmospheric nuclear tests of the 1940s-1960s in the Pacific. Take a stunning Google Earth tour of nuclear bomb craters in U.S. They are the toxic remains of U.S.-led nuclear testing conducted in the 1950s and 1960s. Massive quantities of radioactive waste are buried under a concrete dome in the Marshall Islands. As a result of this, a federal program has been established by Congress that seeks to compensate veterans who participated in atmospheric nuclear testing conducted on Bikini Atoll or Enewetak Atoll between 19. government has agreed to resolve personal illness claims arising from its nuclear testing in the area. Residual radioactivity remains today at Bikini Atoll.Īs a part of the Compact of Free Association with the Marshall Islands, the U.S. tested more than 20 nuclear devices at Bikini Atoll and nearby Enewetak Atoll. The use of atomic weapons in Hiroshima and Nagasaki did more than end World War II – it inspired the burgeoning nuclear arms race. was on the cusp of what would later be dubbed the Cold War with the Soviet Union (the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics, or U.S.S.R.). While the Marshall Islands were officially under the purview of the U.S., the area became known as the Pacific Proving Grounds due to the nuclear testing conducted at various sites in the islands between the mid-1940s and early 1960s.īomb testing in the islands began in 1946, just after World War II ended and as the U.S. Today, the Republic of the Marshall Islands is a sovereign nation in free association with the United States.
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The United States government took administrative control of the Marshall Islands from Japan in 1944, and retained control until 1986, when the islands gained their independence. The atoll is part of the Marshall Islands, which is an island chain located between Hawaii and the Philippines. The atoll includes 23 small coral islands within its reef. Bikini Atoll is a coral island in the Pacific Ocean, consisting of a ring-shaped reef surrounding a 25-mile by 15-mile oval lagoon.