Bikini Atoll

Bikini Atoll is an atoll in the Marshall Islands whose inhabitants were displaced when the United States used it for nuclear weapons tests from 1946 to 1958.

Operation Crossroads: A 1946 United States nuclear test series at Bikini Atoll involving the underwater Able and Baker explosions. Its two tests began the atoll’s use as a nuclear proving ground.
Bikini Islanders: The Marshallese community whose ancestral home is Bikini Atoll. Their displacement and continuing claims define the human consequences of the tests.
Trust Territory of the Pacific Islands: A United Nations trust territory administered by the United States across much of Micronesia from 1947 to 1994. The atoll was placed within this United States-administered territory during the testing era.
UNESCO World Heritage Site: A place recognized under the World Heritage Convention for outstanding cultural or natural significance. Bikini was inscribed for its testimony to the scale and consequences of nuclear testing.
Castle Bravo: A 1954 United States thermonuclear test at Bikini Atoll that produced a much larger yield than predicted. Its radioactive fallout spread beyond the test zone and intensified the crisis at Bikini.
Castle Bravo fallout: Radioactive debris released by the 1954 Castle Bravo test, which contaminated inhabited atolls and a Japanese fishing vessel. Fallout from Bikini exposed communities far beyond the test site.
Operation Crossroads relocation: The 1946 removal of Bikini Atoll’s inhabitants to make the atoll available for United States nuclear tests. This decision initiated the community’s prolonged displacement.
Bikini Atoll Nuclear Test Site: The group of structures and locations on Bikini Atoll associated with United States nuclear testing. This World Heritage property preserves material traces of the test program.
Ivy Mike: The first full-scale test of a thermonuclear device, conducted by the United States in 1952 at Enewetak Atoll. It shows how the Marshall Islands became central to early thermonuclear testing.
Nuclear fallout: Radioactive particles carried through the atmosphere after a nuclear explosion and deposited on land or water. It is the pathway by which Bikini’s tests contaminated distant places.

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