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Bikini Atoll (/ ˈ b ɪ k ɪ ˌ n iː / or / b ɪ ˈ k iː n i /; Marshallese: Pikinni, [pʲiɡinnʲi], lit. ' coconut place '), [2] known as Eschscholtz Atoll between the 19th century and 1946, [3] is a coral reef in the Marshall Islands consisting of 23 islands surrounding a 229.4-square-mile (594.1 km 2) central lagoon.
Nuclear testing at Bikini Atoll consisted of the detonation of 23 (or 24 [a]) nuclear weapons by the United States between 1946 and 1958 on Bikini Atoll in the Marshall Islands. Tests occurred at 7 test sites on the reef itself, on the sea, in the air, and underwater. [ 2 ]
Six very large nuclear tests were conducted at the Bikini Atoll and the Enewetak Atoll as part of Operation Castle in 1954. The most notable was Castle Bravo, which was the first deployable (dry fuel) hydrogen bomb developed by the United States. Its yield, at 15 Mt, was over twice as powerful as was predicted, and remains the largest weapon ...
Bikini Atoll had previously hosted nuclear testing in 1946 as part of Operation Crossroads where the world's fourth and fifth atomic weapons were detonated in Bikini Lagoon. Since then, American nuclear weapons testing had moved to the Enewetak Atoll to take advantage of generally larger islands and deeper water.
In 1946, a year after the war ended, he watched the first U.S. nuclear bomb tests in Bikini Atoll. He was stationed in Billings, where one of his sisters lived, in 1950.
Castle Bravo was the first in a series of high-yield thermonuclear weapon design tests conducted by the United States at Bikini Atoll, Marshall Islands, as part of Operation Castle. Detonated on 1 March 1954, the device remains the most powerful nuclear device ever detonated by the United States and the first lithium deuteride -fueled ...
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[3] [4] In 1954, the U.S. conducted the Castle Bravo test at Bikini Atoll as part of Operation Castle, which resulted in a yield of 15 megatons of TNT, more than double the expected yield. This unexpectedly high yield caused widespread radioactive fallout, leading to severe environmental and human consequences.