Bikini atoll

Bikini atoll the site in the Marshall Islands where the United States conducted twenty-three tests of nuclear weapons. Testing took place from 1946 to 1958 and involved weapons totaling 77 megatons. In the earliest tests, in July 1946, the United States exploded two atomic devices to test their effects on naval forces. The first device, which was exploded above the water's surface, sank five of about seventy ships arranged for the test, and the second device, exploded underwater, sank nine ships. In March 1954 a 15 megaton device named Bravo yielded a larger-than-expected explosion, and radiation contaminated several of the atoll's populated islands. Controversy over the effects of radiation on the islands' people and ecology continues to the present day.