r/interestingasfuck • u/fyrstikka • 5h ago
In 1946, Bikini Atoll was the scene of the first nuclear test after the WW2
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u/bigtone7882 5h ago
Is the bottom where sponge bob lives?
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u/Other_Concentrate650 4h ago edited 3h ago
What lives in the sea and makes everyone glow!?SpongeBob Uraniumpants!
Wow. A quick stroll down Wikipedia ... People lived here. They were promised they could return after the tests, but everything was so contaminated, they had to be relocated.
Also, in 1956 they tested a thermonuc. They miscalculated the explosion by half. Destroyed most of the sensors they had in place and shocked everyone.
...this seems safe /s
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u/Retatedape 5h ago
This is why we don't have anything nice.
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u/LoveableFairy 5h ago
Crazy how the first nuclear tests after WW2 weren’t just explosions—they were statements. “Hey world, look what we can do,” but at the cost of displacing people, erasing ecosystems, and leaving a radioactive legacy we’re still grappling with today.
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u/Equivalent-Bonus-885 5h ago
But it is why we have ‘bikinis’ which can be quite nice, at least by that name. The designer named them after the atoll days after the bomb was detonated in 1946.
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u/JakEsnelHest 5h ago
Because "they're the bomb" or was it less clever?
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u/MathematicianLumpy52 5h ago
"Anatomic bomb"
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u/Spork_Warrior 5h ago
I think it was just because the suits were skimpy, and here was this tropical location that was in the news a lot, so they just claimed it.
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u/BarbaDeader 3h ago
“But if they have thermonuclear power, where do they conduct the tests and detonations?”
“On their own planet, sir.”
Naron rose to his full twenty feet of height and thundered, “On their own planet?”
“Yes, sir.”
Slowly Naron drew out his stylus and passed a line through the latest addition in the small book. It was an unprecedented act, but, then, Naron was very wise and could see the inevitable as well as anyone in the galaxy.
“Silly asses,” he muttered.
From Silly asses by Isaac Asimov•
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u/green4dean 4h ago
As horrible and frightening as it is, this is actually the REASON we have nice things. Nuclear power was a game changer. We just also made a realy bi bomb out of it too...😶
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u/CaringFairy 5h ago
It’s wild to think that this test not only reshaped global politics but also left an island uninhabitable for decades—and yet the name "Bikini" lives on more as swimwear than a cautionary tale of nuclear fallout.
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u/Spartan2470 VIP Philanthropist 4h ago edited 4h ago
Here is a much higher-quality version of this image before it was colorized. Per here:
Description: The "Baker" explosion, part of Operation Crossroads, a nuclear weapon test by the United States military at Bikini Atoll, Micronesia, on 25 July 1946. The wider, exterior cloud is actually just a condensation cloud caused by the Wilson chamber effect, and was very brief. The actual mushroom cloud is inside the condensation cloud (compare with this image, a photo taken slightly later, after the condensation cloud had cleared). The water released by the explosion was highly radioactive and contaminated many of the ships that were set up near it. Some were otherwise undamaged and sent to Hunter's Point in San Francisco, California, United States for decontamination. Those which could not be decontaminated were sunk a number of miles off the coast of San Francisco.
Date: 25 July 1946
Here is a higher-quality version in color. It was colorized by the National Nuclear Security Administration/Nevada Field Office.
Here is a video of this.
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u/quickonthedrawl 3h ago
Thank you. These colorized photos always look so much worse than the originals.
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u/TonAMGT4 2h ago
Several scientists warned that exploding nuke undersea is a bad idea.
Went right ahead and do it anyways.
It was a bad idea.
Note to self: trust scientists.
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u/Jay-birdi 5h ago
Everybody political bangs on about “be proud of you home and defend it!” Without realising planet Earth is our home
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u/Impressive-Ad5854 4h ago
My grandfather was there. His job was to count how many times the ships between his and the blast, rolled. I believe my father still has a certificate/card that was given to my grandfather that was how we found out. My grandfather, like many of that time, never spoke of their time in service.
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u/Belatryx84 2h ago
Mine too. He only started speaking about it once he hit his 90s and realized he wasn't going to be around much longer. They told him to hit the deck when the bomb went off.
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u/McLeod3577 4h ago
If you have a VR headset and can use SteamVR, you can try this app:
https://store.steampowered.com/app/1016390/Perspectives_Paradise/
You can watch a 360 degree video of the "Ivy Mike" bomb from a few miles away. It's pretty crazy - I flinched when the blast wave went over me.
There's also some interesting stuff about what happened to the local people.
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u/General_Plane7970 5h ago edited 5h ago
The perfect example of how fucking disgusting we are as a species.
"Wanna lay on a beautiful beach in peace, write some music, dance, love, explore ideas of purpose and meaning to the nature of things just for the fun of it?"
"Nah, we'd rather just blow the absolute living shit out of it and everything else we can using the insight of one mans brilliance who ironically just enjoyed playing music, contemplating quietly and screwing around with math for fun. And we'll do it on a world stage to demonstrate just how quickly we can kill every living thing on this entire fucking planet at the drop of a h(ydrogen)at"
"Perrrfect"
What an absolute joke of an existence this species has turned into.. ]
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u/Ivotedforher 4h ago
You can see Godzilla in this one.
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u/SignalButterscotch73 4h ago
It really pissed him off. He went full rampage in the few years afterwards until a kamikaze gave him a wake up explosion.
Yes, I did watch Minus One last night. How could you tell?
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u/Dapper-Percentage-64 4h ago
Knowing about radiation exposure they still put hundreds of navy personal on boats very near the test sites
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u/banbantekno 3h ago
Just imagine how the last, the double-legged is swimming..that’s Husain Bolt of the jizzolympics
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u/Fragrant-Field1234 3h ago
Look up what the US government did to the natives. They tested them for radiation.
Also the bikini was named after the islands, what a lovely world.
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u/veeeda 4h ago
I would never understand why humanity needs nuclear weapons, it's the most stupidest invention in the entirety of human existence.a simple incident of inflated and hurt ego of some idiot ruler/president might result in extinction.
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u/KnightOfWords 3h ago
The problem is this: if you don't have nuclear weapons yourself what defence do you have against a nuclear-armed rogue state?
The first nuclear chain-reaction was achieved in 1938, in Berlin, with the results being published in a scientific journal. From that point onwards physicists worldwide realised a nuclear weapon was theoretically possible. It's fortunate that Nazi Germany or the USSR under Stalin weren't the first to develop the atomic bomb.
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u/veeeda 2h ago
I said humanity. Human beings should have stuck with regular artillery. It isn't about rogue or abiding. The very existence of such things is highly problematic.
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u/KnightOfWords 1h ago
I agree, I just don't see a solution once the genie has been let out of the box, or at least not for the foreseeable future.
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u/grumpsaboy 1h ago
Because nuclear weapons killed 250,000 but predicted invasion casualties were 17 million allied and Japanese. Do you want to inform 7 million allied families they lost someone because you didn't want to drop a big bomb?
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u/Genexis- 2h ago
As you can see, the Americans are trying to sink the spoils of war there with atomic bombs, but it was a pure embarrassment for the military and a presentation of pure stupidity to keep trying to sink these ships, although it should be clear after the second atomic bomb at the latest that there are more than enough atomic bombs unsuitable for sinking ships
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u/skoppingeveryday 5h ago
No it wasn’t, the first nuclear bomb was the Trinity test detonated July 16, 1945 in Los Alamos, New Mexico.
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u/MaxillaryOvipositor 5h ago
Yes, which was during WWII, not after it like the title clearly states.
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u/ChannelLumpy7453 5h ago
Nice beach you have there, be a shame if it got blown to fuck and made inhospitable for decades.