Winter is almost over. The warm weather is here. The behes are calling. And heeding the call is that fabled teeny tiny piece of female attire known as the bikini. From the ti of its inception in the 1950s to the present day
Ryan Wendell Salute to Service Jersey , the bikini is the most singular word spoken in every language on the globe. The history of the bikini began long before the official introduction of the swimsuit in the sumr of 1946. It would have to wait until that montous year of 1946 before it would bear the na "bikini". So historians believe that the o piece swimsuit may have been one of the first public swimming costus in existence. Drawing evidence from 300 A.D. Roman mosaics, historians point to this as the swimsuit of choice for ancient Roman won. Where did the na "bikini" co from? It all started with (you guessed it) the aftermath of World War II. Bikini Atoll is located in the central Pific. It is one of the 29 atolls and 5 single islands that form the Republic of the Marall Islands. Bikini is perhaps best known for its role in a series of nuclear tests conducted by the United States in the 1940s and 1950s. Just prior to World War II, Bikini suddenly beca strategic. The Bikini islanders' peeful life of harmony drew to an abrupt close when the Japanese decided to fortify Bikini Atoll to guard against an Arican invasion of the Maralls. Throughout the conflict the Bikini station served as an outpost for the Japanese military headquarters in the Marall Islands, However, Bikini beca a quiet Japanese stronghold whose garrison spent the war gathering flowers. Arican naval strategy used submarines and aircraft carriers to leapfrog over such islands and carry the war to Japan. World War II ca to a formal end in September 1945 with the detonation of nuclear weapons at Hiroima and Nagasaki. It would now be Bikini's turn to fe the aftermath of World War II. The developers of the o piece bathing suit had still not given it a na. Soon they would have an outstanding na for their creation. Because of its location away from regular air and sea routes, Bikini Atoll was chosen to be the new nuclear proving ground for the United States Governnt. While the 167 Bikinians were getting ready for their exodus, preparations for the U.S. nuclear testing program advanced rapidly. Few people would think the Bikinians were terribly interested in the developnt of the nuclear bomb or the o piece bathing suit in 1946. Their interests were simply that of survival. They were fed with finding food, raising families and maintaining their culture. They could barely understand the progression of events set in motion by the Cold War. Events that happened in Waington and Moscow were for the most part out of their control. The residents of Bikini Atoll were not about to model swimwear, either. The nuclear legy of the Bikinians thus began in March of 1946 when they were first removed from their islands in preparation for Operation Crossroads. The history of the Bikinian people from that day forward has been a story of their struggle to exist in the midst of Cold War issues. Operation Crossroads was an atmospheric nuclear weapon test series conducted in July 1946. The series consisted of o detonations, eh with a yield of 23 kilotons. The o atomic bomb blasts of Operation Crossroads were both about the size of the nuclear bomb dropped on Nagasaki, Japan. These were the first nuclear tests held in the Marall Islands. In preparation for Operation Crossroads, the Bikinians were sent 125 miles easard to Rongerik Atoll. Within o months after their arrival on Rongerik, they began to beg U.S. officials to move them bk to Bikini. Meanwhile, the official history of the bikini swimwear also began in the sumr of 1946. Almost imdiately after Operation Crossroads, Jques Heim, a faion designer and beh op owner in the French resort town of Cannes, introduced his swimsuit creation, the "Ato," The swimsuit was nad after the o atomic bombs that were set off in Bikini lagoon. Heim intended to sell his swimsuit in his beh op. To drum up business and increase awareness of the new swimsuit, Heim sent skywriters high above the Cannes sky, proclaiming the new Ato to be "the world's smallest bathing suit." It soon got its better na, which was the bikini. Just three weeks after Heim began marketing his swimsuit, Louis Reard, a chanical engineer who had decided to dabble in swimsuit design, He also sent out skywriters over the French Riviera. The ssage these skywriters carried was simple but powerful marketing: "Bikini-smaller than the smallest bathing suit in the world." Perhaps due to Reard's obvious marketing skills or a simple turn of fate, the na "bikini" beca the official tag for the o-piece swimsuit. The thunderous impt of the o nuclear explosions certainly had more to say about the new bathing suit. Life on Bikini Atoll would never be the sa again. Life on every beh and resort around the world would never be the sa, either. While sales of the bikini swim suit soared to astronomical heights around the world, the native Bikinians were living a miserable existence. They were sickened by irradiation from Operation Crossroads, no matter where they were resettled in the Maralls. It was now ti for yet another chapter in the Bikini Atoll tragedy. This was Operation Castle. Operation Castle was a series of tests that would include the first air-deliverable, and the most powerful hydrogen bomb ever detonated by the United States. Early in the morning on March 1, 1954, the hydrogen bomb, code nad Bravo, was detonated on the surfe of the reef in the northwestern corner of Bikini Atoll. The area was illuminated by a huge and expanding fla of blinding light. A raging fireball of intense heat that asured into the millions of degrees ot skyward at a rate of 300 miles an hour. Within minutes the monstrous cloud, filled with nuclear debris, ot up more than 20 miles and generated winds hundreds.