I have a really hard time believing anyone was starving anymore than they would have been on Bikini. The global population roughly tripled in the 70 years from 1945 until 2015. That did not happen here. A population went from 167 people to more than 5000 in seventy four years. That is more than 30 times higher or roughly 10 times the global average. "Starvation" objectively did not happen. This is a population roughly quadrupled on a generational scale of twenty years. That means every woman had eight children survive and finished having them by the time she was 25, or ten children by the time she is 30. Your smart enough to realize this is not starvation. Complaining they were starving perhaps.
Hey.. at least they made the world of Spongebob Squarepants possible. Never really watched it cuz lack of that on my TV station until torrent and then switched to UA-cam. Also, you were a treat to listen to this time. YarrBQ! Station!
If he were Linus Sabastian he would probably have to reshoot that part of the video after blurting out the words "speaking of disaster, here's the segue to our sponsor!"
don't know u know now Marine life is suffering because of the radiation their, also the place they call the "DOME" holds Radiation that will leak out Eventually.....killing The pacific and making the climate suffer. before i said the same thing Nukes Blowing up were cool, But now i see how it effects The people who live near their and my mindset really changed afterward.
if America is ever defeated, history could very easily remember her as a terrorist state. God knows there are enough atrocities the victor will have to use against her when rewriting the history books
@@umarb7325 You mean the United States of America that freed France, England, and Europe from the fascist Nazi's? The Same U.S. that freed China, Indochina, and the whole of the South Pacific including Australia and New Zealand from Imperialist Japan imperialism? You mean the U.S.A that was called on when Dictator Saddam Hussein attacked Saudi Arabia, Israel, and Kuwait? Those American 'terrorists' who fought to free the Earth from terrorists? Yes, you are stupid.
I am from the Marshall Islands, Majuro Atoll. Thanks for telling our story. The US built a big concrete dome that "trapped" most of the radiation in. The US really treated us like garbage. Anyway, live your channels man. Keep it up.
Biliary Clinton we usually did. The Maralinga Tjarutja people are another victim of that. Britain used Australia’s desire for nuclear tech and as their largest trading partner to get them to agree but they never should have. Clean up projects have been only so effective, I feel for them too.
What I don't get is, if Ronjerik was a toilet and clearly uninhabited why the fuck bomb Bikini or were the people in charge just trying be massive dicks?
@@mrdumbfellow927 The documentary by John Pilger "The Coming War On China" has a section that focuses on the use of the Bikini Islanders as guinea pigs for radiation exposure.
Bikini Bottom is at the bottom of the ocean right net to the Bikini Atoll. Yes, the island you see at the start of each episode is supposed to be the Atoll.
My god I just watched this to nite it’s unreal is it any wonder why we are living the way this world is today COVID is not a mistake they are still at it don’t no what country put it out there I’m glad I am elderly but fear for my children and grand children probably sound like a head case 📕
In case your wondering, the Bikinians still exists. They live off of nearly expired canned food. Drumsticks are considered a special occasion food. They get all their news from one satellite dish and only watch movies that were released of VHS. The island is so small that you can walk around it in the afternoon and half of it has to be cleared for a runway. While the people are still around, their culture is dying. A lot of them don't bother with traditional cultivation methods because of the steady food packages. And Sunday mass is generally the only thing that holds together the idea of a group identity. It almost sounds like a prison of some sort. They need all the help they can get.
The japanese fishing boat, Fukuryu Maru, that was irradiated by Castle Bravo, was one of the main inspirations for the 1954 classic, Gojira (that's Godzilla if ya didn't know). I'm honestly a little surprised Simon didn't mention that little factoid.
Should also have mentioned *why* the boat was affected and why other downstream effects were so profound - Castle Bravo was three times more powerful than expected because some of material in the bomb that was thought to be inert was not. Common lithium (lithium 7) turned out to contribute to the fusion reaction, which was not expected. It's as if you had what you thought was inert material in a normal bomb, but it turned out to be explosive.
Fun fact:the voice actor of SpongeBob actually said bikini bottom was inspired by bikini atoll and there is also a conspiracy theory that the characters of SpongeBob SquarePants were born by one of the atomic bombs. So gojira (Godzilla) was not the only thing inspired by bikini atoll. Also in the SpongeBob episode:dying for pie. There was a scene at the end of the episode we saw the Castile bravo explosion.
Nowadays, just a few decades later, women all over the world can't even imagine going back to something as "conservative" as one-piece suits, unless they're competing in olympic swimming competitions...
@@Spartan265 I agree. Not a big deal either way. I'm not complaining about it. Just highlighting the fact that fifty years was all it took for society to completely reverse ideologies. Jesus. Has the internet really scarred you that badly that you can't tell when someone is highlighting an "ironic twist" on history??
Jon Nunn - Late, but totally agreed. When trying to help normal people, it's really, _really_ sad and annoying to have to deal with the fallout (pun not intended) from the manipulative [insert strongly unkind epithet for dishonest behavior] that makes your statement true.
Propaganda tool of conservatives to try deregulate everything, you know, like the stock market which subsequently led to The Great Recession. It’s not gov that is bad - it’s bad gov that is bad. And mostly that comes from too much money allowed to influence politics, something that currently infects BOTH sides of the aisle.....
I visited the Bikini Atoll in 2007 to dive among the wrecks created there by the Crossroads Able and Baker blasts. The dive briefings were rich with the history of atomic testing on the Atoll. When I returned I studied the history of the relationship between the U.S. and the Marshall Islands since then. Sadly, over the decades since we have continued to mess over the people of those islands. We have mostly washed our hands of responsibility. The diving was awe inspiring including the Arkansas, the Saratoga, and the Japaneses battleship the Nagato which launched the attack on Pearl Harbor.
Simon, thanks for making this episode. Before I was born, my parents moved from California to the Majuro Atoll ~ my father got a job flying the *only* plane in the area (people, mail, cargo... whatever). I've heard so many stories of old WWII bunkers/the Marshallese People and can only imagine how surreal it is to fly over the Bikini Atoll. Thanks for adding some more context to this lesser-known area of the globe
Just one correction, in case no one mentioned it. It couldn't have been a B52 as those weren't introduced until much later. It was a B29 that dropped that 1946 bomb.
@@smugumin3448 Why thank you, thank you very much. Oddly, I didn't even watch the video. I only called it up because I was inspired to tell the joke, then immediately move on to something else.
You did not mention the most horrific aftereffect of the blasts. The island women gave birth to "jellyfish babies" with no bones and transparent skin. One could see the heart beating through the transparent flesh. They only lived for a few days, but had to be hidden away to avoid a permanent curse on the mother. Others gave birth to blobs of tissue resembling huge bunches of grapes.
@@gilzuniga6692It is so unfortunate that in the 1940s people were less aware about the big effects of nuclear weapons. Today, we know how far away one can feel the effects of a nuke, and what kind of diseases are caused by radiation.
My grand dad served here and his medical records “burned”... I did research for him and you can find this info but not much more. When he passed his death was listed as cigarettes not the several cancers he had developed...sick a sad sequence of events.
Angl0sax0nknight right?!?! Why use an uninhabited, good for nothing ring of lands. Let’s move people there and test on the good stuff. This stuff embarrasses me for shit my government pulls.
Mainly for logistical reasons. They need the lagoon to moor the fleet in. One of the reasons for the initial Crossroads operation was to see if the Navy could survive and the effects of an air burst and underwater detonation. There was also a need to house all the personnel while preparing for the experiment. These were 4tth and 5th bomb ever exploded, less than a year since Nagasaki and three years away from the inevitable first Soviet bomb.
@EmperorJuliusCaesar even if the russian spies didn't leak the bomb blueprints things still would have been shit. the us would have been free to use nukes. countries either had the option to ally with the us and do what they said or oppose the us and risk getting nuked. there would be a good likelihood that nukes would be used knowing the us. but if america's enemy had nukes too, that meant using a nuke was mutually assured destruction: if you nuked someone, you would be nuked too. you didn't have america waving nukes around and making everyone bow down to them, now you had america and the soviets fighting, but not wanting to actually use nukes because that would mean the world's fucked. it's still bullshit that the us military couldn't suck it up and deal with not having as many ships in their nuke test instead of evicting an entire island and making them live on a shitty one. if they knew actually using nukes was bad news why bother testing how many ships they can destroy when you know the soviets will make a bigger one that they're also afraid of using.
I had a friend in college who was Marshallese. He was one of the friendliest, most polite guys I ever met. That remark about being in God's hands broke my heart. A lot of Marshallese are Christian and take it very seriously. When talking to my friend, he briefly mentioned all his relatives live in one of the Southeastern states. When I asked why the South in particular, he said there's a huge community out there. I now wonder if he may have been Bikinian.
My grandad's ship, the USS Hughes, was there and managed to survive the blast. She became so radioactive they could never scrap her and had to sink her somewhere off California. Always nice to know she's out there rather than scrapped.
There's quite a few highly radioactive ships sunk not far from San Francisco, the most well known of which is the aircraft carrier USS Independence (CVL-22)
Yay! I’m so happy you did this video. While it’s not the most positive or happy ones. It makes me a little nostalgic. I lived on Kwajalein until I was 6. Its like a little slice of paradise. Only certain workers and family members are allowed to live there now. They still did missile tests into our lagoon when we lived there but nothing nuclear, thankfully. Maybe the bikini exiles paved the way for us to live there so long. 🥺
The B-52 part have already been mentioned, so I´ll ignore that. The Little boy bomb over Hiroshima did not have a parachute neither did the Fat man over Nagasaki. These weapons were not big enough to need chutes to allow the drop plane to escape. The shot of of shot able is really of the much more spectacular underwater shot Baker. The vapor dome of shot baker is not steam, but condensation caused by the vacuum behind the expanding shock front. If it was steam, then there would not have been a huge water column in the center of the explosion. It would have all been steam.
Kyle Hill did a video focusing just on the Castle Bravo test and radiation (so very little of the history and other information you have here). Castle Bravo was a fusion Bomb, and part of the issue was the scientists believing that about half the material they used would be "inert" (narrator: it wasnt inert) it caused MAJOR diplomatic scandals with Japan, and the fishing vessel is now deemed safe enough and is on display in a museum in Tokyo
I wish you had included information about the health impacts on the Bikini Islanders, like the increased risk of cancers and the 'jellyfish babies' - not nice reading, but I know you don't shy from that and I think it deserves to be more widely known. Thank you for covering this subject.
That is detailed extensively in the series “Spongebob Squarepants” everyone has seen it and I’m sure its subject to copyright so that’s why its not included here
The worst part of all these nuclear tests, is that there's no decent footage of it cos cameras were shite then. It would be fascinating to see what an actual nuclear explosion looks like, in good quality, from a stable rig aboard a plane/on the ground, decent sound recording etc. If anything, it could help people understand just how powerful nukes really are. Sure, hearing about all the stories and what people say is one thing, but actually seeing it for yourself would put everything into perspective. Imagine HD footage of the Arkansas standing on her bow and flipping over, in the midst of a mushroom cloud, it would be incredible. We could even have different filters to show brighter/darker moments, slow mo footage, everything.
I live in the biggest population of them outside of the islands. They get free passage from there to the us and the us governments restitution makes up a huge amount of the gdp there. Doesn’t make it right though.
I agree that the US government owes these people, it's a little unfair to look only at the US here, during this time all countries with ability to build nuclear reactors or weapons were laughably irresponsible with them. I th
The Arkansas was not lifted up into the air by the Baker test. What is visible in films is the "shadow" caused by the hull of the ship blocking water/steam radiating away from the explosion. The vessel was capsized and sank upside down as most battleships do because of their top-weight.
The Bikini Atoll nuclear testing still affects my wife's family. Her maternal grandfather was there during the Baker test, was overexposed to radiation and about 1 year after the test, my late mother in law was born. She was never quite right and passed that legacy down to my wife who is better off than her mother, but suffers from the effects of the radiation passed down through her mother.
@@cuckNorrishow does it work? You mean radiation isn't inherited? It causes mutations, which are inherited, but sexual reproduction is very good at diluting genetic diseases, especially when people are not marrying relatives such as first or second cousins, so that is how the daughter suffered less than the mother.
Interestingly, a friend of mine is married to a princess of a tribe from the Marshall islands. I had no clue there were bomb tests conducted here.. crazy the govt would do this to an inhabited land.
My grandfather was one of the soldiers who had to clean the boats to recommission them after all the animals on them died. He was in a group of men severely effected, and they tested iodine treatments on him successfully. Other men in his group died. To this day, he's 85 years old but he can't get X-rays because he still has the radioactive isotopes in his system, and he breaks out in seasons because they become very active exposed to that radiation. He could not work due to the long term effects, but they held his pension over his head, and he had to fight to get it in court. They were trying to say he had to die and they'd give the pension to his wife. Absolutely backstabbing and unpatriotic of our own system, but he won in court. Him and my Grandma are doing fine right now. He also explained the Foo Fighters that lined up and apparently "watched" the explosions. The military tried to shoot them down, hit them outright with a plane, ballistics, everything you can imagine, and the lights would either move out of the way at inhumane speeds or blip out and flicker back into existence. Eventually, the military gave up, considering the lights were only watching, and after the bombs were dropped, they disappeared. This was super confidential at the time, and there's no reason for my grandpa to lie, but he said he saw them with his own eyes.
@@kayvonmansouriUFOs. They saw something in the sky like a bright light, tried to shoot it down, it moved tok quickly, they didn't know what it was, and it disappeared. A mystery which can't be solved by science or by conspiracy theories.
Honestly there's a veritable treasure trove (pun absolutely intended) of Geographics content in just the Montana Rockies much less the entire state. The *massive* Glacial Lake Missoula, the still very massive Flathead Lake (largest freshwater lake west of the Mississippi), the various ghost towns (Garnet perhaps most notably), Glacier Park, Fort Missoula, Kootenai Forest and Yaak Valley, Yellowstone (the park not the Supervolcano), Bob Marshall Wilderness, and of course the Bitterroot mountains, Bitterroot Forest, and the High Desert itself, the Bitterroot Valley. And thats just west Montana...
To be fair, nuclear weapons probably prevented your Great Grandpas and countless Japanese soldiers and civilians from being killed in a dragged-out World war 2. Japan was not interested in surrendering near the end of the war and US troops were horrified to see so man suicides and kamikaze attacks from young japanese soldiers due to pride. While the atomic bombs killed a lot of people, a ground campaign or conventional bombing campaign to force Japan into submission would have killed even more people, on both sides! So i would say it was reasonable to use, I don't think i could tell a 18yr old soldier to his face that he was going to have to die needlessly because we werent willing to use the bomb.
@G Walker Oh yeah cuz playing with God and destroying a whole way of life for people and making their home uninhabitable. Is protecting itself. It's easy to justify atrocities when you say it's for self protection. Pretty much every horrible thing nations have ever done has been justified in ways such as these. This is the reality of our nation. Exploiting and destroying those perceived as weak, in the way, or some kind of threat. Our legacy is the blood of the innocent.
@@michaelslowmin would you want that or not to exist at all? Your so called veterans that kept us liberated from nazi germany and fellow scientists who kept us ahead of the soviets are the reason you can stand here today away from the remains of tyranny in China and North Korea
@@mistersunshine1330 Um I'm not sure why you're calling them "so called veterans". They stopped the advance of the Nazis and if they're not veterans I don't know who is. To answer your point about staying ahead of the soviets: Is showing that you could make nukes faster worth the cost of destroying innocent people's way of life? Do you really think that was the difference between whether the US became a soviet state? To me it amounts to nothing more than a flex of military might for it's own sake at the cost of innocent lives. Nothing was gained from this.
It might interest you to know that it wasn't only the Americans who nuking the shit out of the Pacific Ocean, as France conducted 193 nuclear tests from 1966 to 1996 at Moruroa and Fangataufa atolls in French Polynesia, including 41 atmospheric tests until 1974 that exposed the local population, site workers and French soldiers to high levels of radiation. Also, Britain, with the blessing of the Australian government, conducted their own atmospheric nuclear tests during the mid 1950's at a place called Maralinga in the out back, South Australian desert. Effectively, they used the British and Australian servicemen as guinea pigs when they exploded the bombs. The local Aboriginal people near the atomic test sites who were conveniently ignored (l mean they didn't even have the right to vote and weren't counted as Australian citizens-just flora and fauna) suffered mass radiation poisoning also. All of those military personnel and the Aboriginal people who suffered from exposure to the radiation from the atomic tests had to fight for decades to receive compensation from the British and Australian governments, who it seemed callously and deliberately stone walled these people whose health deteriorated until they conveniently died of illnesses caused by the test explosions. Oh yes indeed, all of the post world war 2 powers had some skin in the game, when it came to atmospheric nuclear testing in the Pacific and nearby Australia. I haven't even mentioned the Soviet Union and Communist China with their own equally negligent atmospheric atomic testing either...
My grandfather was apart of operation crosse roads. I even did a project on it in school. He waw part if it for only the early years after ww2. He was a photographer on the ship and he was also one of the people to go on the ships and and examine the submarines and their damage. I have a card saying what ship he was on and even and orginal photo of one of the bombs.
Besides the swimsuit Bikini has a few other contributions to pop culture. Namely in a form of a giant radioactive lizard that likes to attack Japan. And a certain sponge who lives in a pineapple
It’s actually a tragedy, Marshall Islanders losing their homes and countless USN and USMC exposed...ntm the environmental damage and the fact that the USN was warned by a memo signed by most of the Los Alamos professors that this would be a disaster
Shout out from New Zealand. Thank you to the U.S, France and England for not detonating nuclear weapons down in the south Pacific. Mighty big of you all.
1:40 - Chapter 1 - Before the bomb 5:05 - Chapter 2 - The beginning of armageddon 8:25 - Chapter 3 - The Exodus 12:00 - Mid roll ads 13:15 - Chapter 4 - The 1st nuclear disaster 16:20 - Chapter 5 - Castle bravo 19:35 - Chapter 6 - A home from home
@@CashelOConnolly The cubic ton is a measure of volume. It is no longer used in the United Kingdom but seems to be still in use in the United States. And most often used with rawmaterials such as timber, or wheat.
There area few Marshallese who work for the US DOE that live on Bikini on 3 month rotations. They are raising crops to test how dangerous the food chain still is there. There is also site on Rongelap doing the same work. Rongelap currently has about 40 residents, and they are some of the nicest people I have ever met.
Castle-bravo was a mistake regarding the Lithium Deuteride fusion source, they wer'nt really sure how much would fuse, So they left it a mixture of two isotopes,Lithium6,and 7 i think,,
Correct. They knew how the bombs worked, not always the why. Given the potentially dangerous nature of what they were doing, a surprising amount of it was trial and error. Then reverse engineering the mistakes to figure out what they just saw. Today it seems almost insane. But the people working on these projects were far ahead of anything science had done before. So there were few guidelines or warnings.
Hey Simon, you should do a video on Newgrange next. It's a massive Neolithic structure in Ireland that's older than the Pyramids (the oldest one being the Pyramid of Djoser at 2600 bc)and Stonehenge(3000bc) being built in 3200 bc. It has a door with a roof box above it that perfectly aligns with the sun on the Winter solstice and a roof so well made that it's still waterproof to this day. Archaeologists are baffled on how these people were able to build such a sophisticated structure before the advent of writing and the crane and how advanced their knowledge of the cosmos and the exact alignment of the sun was. Shows how skilled my ancestors were in construction techniques,lapidary design, mathematical calculations and astronomical observation. And for April fools day you should do a video on Nat Tate and for pride month you should do Judy Garland. Anyway great video, as always. Keep up the good work.
I wonder what was used as a justification to use a habited atol as the testruction (sic) site? Wouldn’t it be more reasonable to use another atol where were no people to kick out.
They needed specific wind patterns and currents, as well as specific depth of the lagoon and size of the islands. No doubt they looked for uninhabited atols first, and when they didn't find any took the one with the smallest population.
@@--enyo-- I am hoping you are just joking, because even if the US was super duper racist back then, it still would have been cheaper and quicker to use the uninhabited island if it was an acceptable test-site. So obviously there must have been other considerations to make bikini a better test area. And this is also considering the fact that before dropping the atomic bombs Japan the US dropped pamphlets warning to flee and of a weapon that would destroy their factories and major cities filled with "not white" people. Yeah racism was definitely a thing back then, but this doesnt mean people didn't value all life to a degree.
Simon, you gent. You and the crew are keeping this quarantine filled with content and keeping myself (and many others) amused. Entertaining and informative as always!
Great video. I remembered while watching this I read a book about this in high school written from the perspective of an islander. Idk if it was a fictional account or a biography.
you should look into all the underground nuke testing. the desert footage is really fascinating and there was even one test done east of the Mississippi river which never gets talked about. one test in alaska is pretty creepy as you can see all the distant land and a lake literally jump up from the blast..
One of the most interesting stories to come out of the underground testing was the possible sending of a steel cap into space. Operation Plumbbob had many tests but Pascal B was a bomb tested in a shaft with a 1 ton steel plate covering the top of it. Upon detonation of the nuclear bomb the plate disappeared and could not be found. They went to check the high speed film to see if they could ascertain where it went but out of the hundreds of frames shot per second the plate only appeared in one of them. It was estimated that the plate was traveling in excess of 150,000mph or more than six times Earths escape velocity. That works out to be roughly 41 miles per second. They theorize that if the plate didn't burn up due to friction upon going through the atmosphere that it is now hurtling through space and could be the furthest traveled man made object ever put into space.
A slightly little error in this video, Simon. You're telling that the ground around Chernobyl can not be walked on, because it is still drenched by radio activity. Well, this is not entirely true. Today, 35 years after reactor 4 of the Chernobyl plant exploded, you can visit the area under guidance of a guide who knows exaxtly were you can walk, and were not. Generally, it's relatively save.
9:44 "the fish were inedible". I know there are a few species of puffer fish and some cold water sharks that can't be eaten, but to say an entire tropical Pacific lagoon is full of inedible fish is a bit tough to swallow.
Being tough to swallow is probably why they were "inedible". Jokes aside, there's nearly never such a thing as "inedible", just "okay how do I make it edible". It's just that sometimes you have to bury the fish, let it rot for seasons, and then soak it in lye. (Lutefisk! That was done because the fish was otherwise incredibly toxic, and some madlad went "what if we make it rot in clay and then dunk it in soap???".)
I know someone who was at a test during the Korean war. They had the boats think target . Anchored at set distances from the island out further and further away. When they set off the bomb it was at a different island told to the crew. Instead of a distant island they were told one that would have put several islands separating them from the blast. They bombed the nearest island to the ships. First row vaporized. Official statement is those boats were empty. No fully crewed first 3 rows no survivors. We are talking 100's on each ship. Mia in Korea is how there loved ones were told. Yes all from the conflict whare the trail runs cold. All transferred top secret to the test. The government has shredded the whole paper trail. They refused the person I knew. VA sorry sailor no record of you being there. He provided them with a signed letter thanking him for his service at the blast by president Truman. Of course they wanted it for the record... he photocopied it and gave them one. Eventually they covered him with full disability somewhere around his 75th Birthday. Took a lot of effort and years to get recognized by our government.
Here from the Megaprojects B-52 video, fantastic channel. I have yet to run into a gripe on any of your channels. All of them are educational and Business Blaze is pretty Amazing too.Thanks Simon and the Simon Whistler team.
Dunno why they picked an inhabited island paradise to blow up. Why not keep it in the same area as the Trinity test? Far fewer people care about an uninhabited desert. If you're gonna make a place radioactive for centuries why not just 1 spot rather than multiple? Also if cleanup is even part of the plan cheaper and easier to clean up 1 place than hundreds.
The French designer who designed the swimsuit named it after the Nuclear test. Because such a small swimsuit was outrageous at that time, Bikini Atoll being all over the news at the time, and the intonations of the word Bikini, suggesting nuclear explosions, "Bi" suggesting a prefix for "two" and "ini" suggesting a suffix for "tiny" it really was the perfect name for this super hot, outrageously tiny two-piece swimsuit.
You left out the part where the nuclear test awakened a nuclear dinosaur that went on to regularly attack Japan and occasionally save the world from extraterrestrial threats like the giant 3 headed Dragon that fires gravity beams.
I am amazed. I remember the news articles about the nuclear tests/exlplosins on Bikini atom. I never imagined how blithely the American government played with our futures.
I honestly hate the tests on the warships. Prinz Eugen is still at the Bikini atol and I whole heartedly wish she got salvaged and somewhat restroed as probably the only German WW2 ship able to be done so. Also sad that IJN Nagato was basicly at the epic center of that blast. Both would've been amazing museum ships later down the road.. Not be used as test subjects.
It would’ve been a lot better for the natives and cheaper for the United States to have brought them to the mainland and given them US citizenship. Poor people.
Simon I had a uncle that was at the Bikini Island test. He lived into his late 70's but died of a very rare brain cancer that from accounts from his son was a painful and retched death. Can you explore this?
If the tests at the atoll had been conducted with just a bit more care (and correct measurements), the atolls wouldn't be such a disaster. At least we didn't do what the Russians did, just picked a seemingly remote place and nuked the f* out of it with villages, rivers, and small lakes scattered about, and just told the many civilians that they were perfectly fine.
Want some fun with your facts? Check out BUSINESS BLAZE: ua-cam.com/channels/YY5GWf7MHFJ6DZeHreoXgw.html
Subscribed :-)
And Simon’s total UA-cam takeover continues. Just according to plans.....
I have a really hard time believing anyone was starving anymore than they would have been on Bikini. The global population roughly tripled in the 70 years from 1945 until 2015. That did not happen here. A population went from 167 people to more than 5000 in seventy four years. That is more than 30 times higher or roughly 10 times the global average. "Starvation" objectively did not happen. This is a population roughly quadrupled on a generational scale of twenty years. That means every woman had eight children survive and finished having them by the time she was 25, or ten children by the time she is 30. Your smart enough to realize this is not starvation. Complaining they were starving perhaps.
Hey.. at least they made the world of Spongebob Squarepants possible.
Never really watched it cuz lack of that on my TV station until torrent and then switched to UA-cam.
Also, you were a treat to listen to this time. YarrBQ! Station!
Hello from Kwajalein ...yes, we have internet here
That moment when you have enough channels to literally sponsor yourself.
If you have only one channel, as long as you're paying for everything yourself, you're self sponsored. Smh
If he were Linus Sabastian he would probably have to reshoot that part of the video after blurting out the words "speaking of disaster, here's the segue to our sponsor!"
American Politicians: "Nice islands you got there, be a shame if someone
N U K E D I T"
don't know u know now Marine life is suffering because of the radiation their, also the place they call the "DOME" holds Radiation that will leak out Eventually.....killing The pacific and making the climate suffer.
before i said the same thing Nukes Blowing up were cool, But now i see how it effects The people who live near their and my mindset really changed afterward.
if America is ever defeated, history could very easily remember her as a terrorist state. God knows there are enough atrocities the victor will have to use against her when rewriting the history books
"W O O P S"
@@umarb7325 the heck are you on?
@@umarb7325 You mean the United States of America that freed France, England, and Europe from the fascist Nazi's? The Same U.S. that freed China, Indochina, and the whole of the South Pacific including Australia and New Zealand from Imperialist Japan imperialism? You mean the U.S.A that was called on when Dictator Saddam Hussein attacked Saudi Arabia, Israel, and Kuwait? Those American 'terrorists' who fought to free the Earth from terrorists? Yes, you are stupid.
I am from the Marshall Islands, Majuro Atoll. Thanks for telling our story. The US built a big concrete dome that "trapped" most of the radiation in. The US really treated us like garbage. Anyway, live your channels man. Keep it up.
I am horrified by this. I’m so sorry.
Very veryhorrible! I feel so sorryfor you
And I thought the Russians and their poisons were bad. xD
Biliary Clinton we usually did. The Maralinga Tjarutja people are another victim of that. Britain used Australia’s desire for nuclear tech and as their largest trading partner to get them to agree but they never should have. Clean up projects have been only so effective, I feel for them too.
I couldn't imagine it, you lot were absolutely shat on with no repercussions. Sympathy from lancashire, england.
My Dad was the XO on LST 1108, the ship that evacuated the Islanders. He did say hat Bikini was close to paradise and Ronjerik was a toilet.
What I don't get is, if Ronjerik was a toilet and clearly uninhabited why the fuck bomb Bikini or were the people in charge just trying be massive dicks?
Sock Puppet they wanted to use them as living test subjects to nuclear fallout to see what would happen
@@ianloeb1672 proof?
@@mrdumbfellow927 hey don't ask a tin hat for proof. You should know better
@@mrdumbfellow927 The documentary by John Pilger "The Coming War On China" has a section that focuses on the use of the Bikini Islanders as guinea pigs for radiation exposure.
Spongebob all of a sudden makes sense.
I mean bikini bottom is kinda located in a crater...hmmmm... and the houses do kinda look like they're made from sunken ship parts....hmmmm :D
And now we know why sandey got a 👙
Bikini Bottom is at the bottom of the ocean right net to the Bikini Atoll.
Yes, the island you see at the start of each episode is supposed to be the Atoll.
Yess
Yep
The ironic thing is that while everyone knows what a bikini is, probably most people have no idea about the islands it was named after.
raven lord I knew about the swimwear and the islands but never connected the two since islands end up named many strange things over the years.
Nobody Atoll
G-string theory!
what about spongebob
My god I just watched this to nite it’s unreal is it any wonder why we are living the way this world is today COVID is not a mistake they are still at it don’t no what country put it out there I’m glad I am elderly but fear for my children and grand children probably sound like a head case 📕
In case your wondering, the Bikinians still exists. They live off of nearly expired canned food. Drumsticks are considered a special occasion food. They get all their news from one satellite dish and only watch movies that were released of VHS.
The island is so small that you can walk around it in the afternoon and half of it has to be cleared for a runway.
While the people are still around, their culture is dying. A lot of them don't bother with traditional cultivation methods because of the steady food packages. And Sunday mass is generally the only thing that holds together the idea of a group identity.
It almost sounds like a prison of some sort. They need all the help they can get.
The japanese fishing boat, Fukuryu Maru, that was irradiated by Castle Bravo, was one of the main inspirations for the 1954 classic, Gojira (that's Godzilla if ya didn't know). I'm honestly a little surprised Simon didn't mention that little factoid.
Should also have mentioned *why* the boat was affected and why other downstream effects were so profound - Castle Bravo was three times more powerful than expected because some of material in the bomb that was thought to be inert was not. Common lithium (lithium 7) turned out to contribute to the fusion reaction, which was not expected. It's as if you had what you thought was inert material in a normal bomb, but it turned out to be explosive.
SpongeBob is literally based as the sea floor around bikini atoll hence bikini bottom 🤷
Fun fact:the voice actor of SpongeBob actually said bikini bottom was inspired by bikini atoll and there is also a conspiracy theory that the characters of SpongeBob SquarePants were born by one of the atomic bombs. So gojira (Godzilla) was not the only thing inspired by bikini atoll. Also in the SpongeBob episode:dying for pie. There was a scene at the end of the episode we saw the Castile bravo explosion.
Fun fact: Reard's new swimsuit was so scandalous that he initially couldn't find models willing to wear it, so he had to hire strippers.
Nowadays, just a few decades later, women all over the world can't even imagine going back to something as "conservative" as one-piece suits, unless they're competing in olympic swimming competitions...
@@shindari Who cares? It's not really a big deal. Like at all.
@@Spartan265 I agree. Not a big deal either way. I'm not complaining about it. Just highlighting the fact that fifty years was all it took for society to completely reverse ideologies.
Jesus. Has the internet really scarred you that badly that you can't tell when someone is highlighting an "ironic twist" on history??
Christopher Merlot -- How funny is that! What a hoot.
@@Spartan265 That can be said for 99% of everything.
The scarcest words known to man: "I'm from the US Government, and I'm hear to help."
Jon Nunn - Here.
*scariest
Nice
Jon Nunn - Late, but totally agreed.
When trying to help normal people, it's really, _really_ sad and annoying to have to deal with the fallout (pun not intended) from the manipulative [insert strongly unkind epithet for dishonest behavior] that makes your statement true.
Propaganda tool of conservatives to try deregulate everything, you know, like the stock market which subsequently led to The Great Recession. It’s not gov that is bad - it’s bad gov that is bad. And mostly that comes from too much money allowed to influence politics, something that currently infects BOTH sides of the aisle.....
SpongeBob and his city reside at the bottom of that atoll, I can see why. Oh yeah it's all coming together
I visited the Bikini Atoll in 2007 to dive among the wrecks created there by the Crossroads Able and Baker blasts. The dive briefings were rich with the history of atomic testing on the Atoll. When I returned I studied the history of the relationship between the U.S. and the Marshall Islands since then. Sadly, over the decades since we have continued to mess over the people of those islands. We have mostly washed our hands of responsibility.
The diving was awe inspiring including the Arkansas, the Saratoga, and the Japaneses battleship the Nagato which launched the attack on Pearl Harbor.
I too visited in 2007 to dive the nuclear fleet. The diving was terrific.
Simon, thanks for making this episode. Before I was born, my parents moved from California to the Majuro Atoll ~ my father got a job flying the *only* plane in the area (people, mail, cargo... whatever). I've heard so many stories of old WWII bunkers/the Marshallese People and can only imagine how surreal it is to fly over the Bikini Atoll. Thanks for adding some more context to this lesser-known area of the globe
Hey, who is your father? My dad started the airline out there so Im just curious who he might has flown with.a
Just one correction, in case no one mentioned it. It couldn't have been a B52 as those weren't introduced until much later. It was a B29 that dropped that 1946 bomb.
Your writer is incredible and I want him to know he's amazing and deserves recognition, alongside everyone else who helps make these videos a reality.
Why did the cops arrest the nude woman?
Because she wasn't wearing a bikini atoll.
Underrated comment
@@smugumin3448 Why thank you, thank you very much. Oddly, I didn't even watch the video. I only called it up because I was inspired to tell the joke, then immediately move on to something else.
Hahaha stupid
🥁 **rimshot**
Best comment. Thanks for the joke
You did not mention the most horrific aftereffect of the blasts. The island women gave birth to "jellyfish babies" with no bones and transparent skin. One could see the heart beating through the transparent flesh. They only lived for a few days, but had to be hidden away to avoid a permanent curse on the mother. Others gave birth to blobs of tissue resembling huge bunches of grapes.
damn is that true? thats horiffic
@@jamesc3953very true, you just don’t blast a nuclear weapon and don’t expect consequences….it’s science.
@@gilzuniga6692It is so unfortunate that in the 1940s people were less aware about the big effects of nuclear weapons. Today, we know how far away one can feel the effects of a nuke, and what kind of diseases are caused by radiation.
This story is so incredibly, incredibly sad.
My grand dad served here and his medical records “burned”... I did research for him and you can find this info but not much more. When he passed his death was listed as cigarettes not the several cancers he had developed...sick a sad sequence of events.
Reasons the military didn’t use the atoll that they sent the islanders to in the first place....
Angl0sax0nknight right?!?! Why use an uninhabited, good for nothing ring of lands. Let’s move people there and test on the good stuff. This stuff embarrasses me for shit my government pulls.
Mainly for logistical reasons. They need the lagoon to moor the fleet in. One of the reasons for the initial Crossroads operation was to see if the Navy could survive and the effects of an air burst and underwater detonation. There was also a need to house all the personnel while preparing for the experiment. These were 4tth and 5th bomb ever exploded, less than a year since Nagasaki and three years away from the inevitable first Soviet bomb.
Probably that the lagoon wasn't large enough to fit a mock fleet
@EmperorJuliusCaesar even if the russian spies didn't leak the bomb blueprints things still would have been shit. the us would have been free to use nukes. countries either had the option to ally with the us and do what they said or oppose the us and risk getting nuked. there would be a good likelihood that nukes would be used knowing the us. but if america's enemy had nukes too, that meant using a nuke was mutually assured destruction: if you nuked someone, you would be nuked too. you didn't have america waving nukes around and making everyone bow down to them, now you had america and the soviets fighting, but not wanting to actually use nukes because that would mean the world's fucked.
it's still bullshit that the us military couldn't suck it up and deal with not having as many ships in their nuke test instead of evicting an entire island and making them live on a shitty one. if they knew actually using nukes was bad news why bother testing how many ships they can destroy when you know the soviets will make a bigger one that they're also afraid of using.
@@ericcarpenter3263 pretty much every countries scumy government has done dodgy shit to someone else
I had a friend in college who was Marshallese. He was one of the friendliest, most polite guys I ever met. That remark about being in God's hands broke my heart. A lot of Marshallese are Christian and take it very seriously.
When talking to my friend, he briefly mentioned all his relatives live in one of the Southeastern states. When I asked why the South in particular, he said there's a huge community out there. I now wonder if he may have been Bikinian.
I think the state is Arkansas though I'd have to look it up to be sure. Many of the Islanders settled there.
@@wanderingangelstudio1359 I think you're right. Arkansas sounds familiar.
My grandad's ship, the USS Hughes, was there and managed to survive the blast. She became so radioactive they could never scrap her and had to sink her somewhere off California. Always nice to know she's out there rather than scrapped.
There's quite a few highly radioactive ships sunk not far from San Francisco, the most well known of which is the aircraft carrier USS Independence (CVL-22)
They tried to wash them off at Treasure Island San Francisco.
Glowing red ?
@@delboytrotter8806 this is not how electromagnetic spectrum works
Tell that to the 3-headed whales.
Hey Simon just wanted to say keep up with the interesting shows. Love all the series' you guys produced!!
Yay! I’m so happy you did this video. While it’s not the most positive or happy ones. It makes me a little nostalgic. I lived on Kwajalein until I was 6. Its like a little slice of paradise. Only certain workers and family members are allowed to live there now. They still did missile tests into our lagoon when we lived there but nothing nuclear, thankfully. Maybe the bikini exiles paved the way for us to live there so long. 🥺
I was glad to see it as well, my wife is from Maj.
Bikini 👙
The B-52 part have already been mentioned, so I´ll ignore that.
The Little boy bomb over Hiroshima did not have a parachute neither did the Fat man over Nagasaki. These weapons were not big enough to need chutes to allow the drop plane to escape.
The shot of of shot able is really of the much more spectacular underwater shot Baker.
The vapor dome of shot baker is not steam, but condensation caused by the vacuum behind the expanding shock front. If it was steam, then there would not have been a huge water column in the center of the explosion. It would have all been steam.
Phew........thanks prof....
Kyle Hill did a video focusing just on the Castle Bravo test and radiation (so very little of the history and other information you have here).
Castle Bravo was a fusion Bomb, and part of the issue was the scientists believing that about half the material they used would be "inert" (narrator: it wasnt inert)
it caused MAJOR diplomatic scandals with Japan, and the fishing vessel is now deemed safe enough and is on display in a museum in Tokyo
I wish you had included information about the health impacts on the Bikini Islanders, like the increased risk of cancers and the 'jellyfish babies' - not nice reading, but I know you don't shy from that and I think it deserves to be more widely known. Thank you for covering this subject.
That is detailed extensively in the series “Spongebob Squarepants” everyone has seen it and I’m sure its subject to copyright so that’s why its not included here
@@nikolasincorporatedThis is not a joke, fool
The worst part of all these nuclear tests, is that there's no decent footage of it cos cameras were shite then.
It would be fascinating to see what an actual nuclear explosion looks like, in good quality, from a stable rig aboard a plane/on the ground, decent sound recording etc.
If anything, it could help people understand just how powerful nukes really are.
Sure, hearing about all the stories and what people say is one thing, but actually seeing it for yourself would put everything into perspective.
Imagine HD footage of the Arkansas standing on her bow and flipping over, in the midst of a mushroom cloud, it would be incredible.
We could even have different filters to show brighter/darker moments, slow mo footage, everything.
The USA 'owes' the people of Bikini.
The USA owes a LOT of people a LOT of things that will never get paid.
We do
@Biliary Clinton Well no - mostly, the Americans take. And anything they give they get back 100x in trade or cheap labour.
I live in the biggest population of them outside of the islands. They get free passage from there to the us and the us governments restitution makes up a huge amount of the gdp there. Doesn’t make it right though.
I agree that the US government owes these people, it's a little unfair to look only at the US here, during this time all countries with ability to build nuclear reactors or weapons were laughably irresponsible with them. I th
The Arkansas was not lifted up into the air by the Baker test. What is visible in films is the "shadow" caused by the hull of the ship blocking water/steam radiating away from the explosion. The vessel was capsized and sank upside down as most battleships do because of their top-weight.
I always wondered about that photo. I dove the wreck in 2007 and the dive master shared that photo.
Beggs the question: why instead of relocating the 160 Bikinan's to an "unfriendly" atol, the detonation were not simply done there?
Not big enough maybe, or not remote enough.
Not as remote.
The Bikini Atoll nuclear testing still affects my wife's family. Her maternal grandfather was there during the Baker test, was overexposed to radiation and about 1 year after the test, my late mother in law was born. She was never quite right and passed that legacy down to my wife who is better off than her mother, but suffers from the effects of the radiation passed down through her mother.
Paul Godbey Sorry for your family’s suffering. God bless your family.
"never quite right" doesn't mean anything. Also, that's not how the real world works.
@@cuckNorrishow does it work? You mean radiation isn't inherited? It causes mutations, which are inherited, but sexual reproduction is very good at diluting genetic diseases, especially when people are not marrying relatives such as first or second cousins, so that is how the daughter suffered less than the mother.
Interestingly, a friend of mine is married to a princess of a tribe from the Marshall islands. I had no clue there were bomb tests conducted here.. crazy the govt would do this to an inhabited land.
My grandfather was one of the soldiers who had to clean the boats to recommission them after all the animals on them died.
He was in a group of men severely effected, and they tested iodine treatments on him successfully. Other men in his group died. To this day, he's 85 years old but he can't get X-rays because he still has the radioactive isotopes in his system, and he breaks out in seasons because they become very active exposed to that radiation. He could not work due to the long term effects, but they held his pension over his head, and he had to fight to get it in court. They were trying to say he had to die and they'd give the pension to his wife. Absolutely backstabbing and unpatriotic of our own system, but he won in court. Him and my Grandma are doing fine right now.
He also explained the Foo Fighters that lined up and apparently "watched" the explosions. The military tried to shoot them down, hit them outright with a plane, ballistics, everything you can imagine, and the lights would either move out of the way at inhumane speeds or blip out and flicker back into existence. Eventually, the military gave up, considering the lights were only watching, and after the bombs were dropped, they disappeared. This was super confidential at the time, and there's no reason for my grandpa to lie, but he said he saw them with his own eyes.
Foo fighters? Please explain
@@kayvonmansouri 👽
@@kayvonmansouriUFOs. They saw something in the sky like a bright light, tried to shoot it down, it moved tok quickly, they didn't know what it was, and it disappeared. A mystery which can't be solved by science or by conspiracy theories.
Would you guys mind doing one on Butte, MT? It's an interesting place where the copper kings battled over "the richest hill on Earth"
And now it's most notable for a giant polluted pit. Definitely would make for a good episode.
@@nedisahonkey Especially since it's really close to overflowing. It's kinda pretty though
Yeah, I for one would love to hear about rock-hard Butte drilling...
..of course, I've heard it's a veritable mountain of back-breaking work!
@@bcubed72 Started off quite strong, but weakened a bit in the second inning. I'd give it… a D.
Honestly there's a veritable treasure trove (pun absolutely intended) of Geographics content in just the Montana Rockies much less the entire state. The *massive* Glacial Lake Missoula, the still very massive Flathead Lake (largest freshwater lake west of the Mississippi), the various ghost towns (Garnet perhaps most notably), Glacier Park, Fort Missoula, Kootenai Forest and Yaak Valley, Yellowstone (the park not the Supervolcano), Bob Marshall Wilderness, and of course the Bitterroot mountains, Bitterroot Forest, and the High Desert itself, the Bitterroot Valley. And thats just west Montana...
Wait, is it not where SpongeBob SquarePants lives? 😏
Well Google Maps rates The Chum Bucket as 4.9 so ... 😀
That explains the weird mutations of the characters, i guess.
@@mycarkeys4499 No, "bikini bottom" is there b/c Sponebob is chock full of adult references.
If there were no atomic bombs there would be no Spongebob. So who says atomic weapons are all bad?
@@bcubed72 it may be a reference to both.
Time traveling B52. That was an impressive feat of American technology.
You know, I didn't think I could hate my military/government any more for developing nuclear weapons, but today you proved me wrong, Simon.
One bright note here... after seeing the power of these things... not one was again used in a war.
To be fair, nuclear weapons probably prevented your Great Grandpas and countless Japanese soldiers and civilians from being killed in a dragged-out World war 2. Japan was not interested in surrendering near the end of the war and US troops were horrified to see so man suicides and kamikaze attacks from young japanese soldiers due to pride. While the atomic bombs killed a lot of people, a ground campaign or conventional bombing campaign to force Japan into submission would have killed even more people, on both sides! So i would say it was reasonable to use, I don't think i could tell a 18yr old soldier to his face that he was going to have to die needlessly because we werent willing to use the bomb.
Irondrone4 Yes but these incredible weapons stopped countless wars and deaths based on MAD
B-29, not at B-52.
Love shack?
And the image that follows that comment is the Baker Test, not Able!
I’ve never been so disgusted and disappointed in America or humanity in general. So much disrespect towards fellow life.
@G Walker Oh yeah cuz playing with God and destroying a whole way of life for people and making their home uninhabitable. Is protecting itself. It's easy to justify atrocities when you say it's for self protection. Pretty much every horrible thing nations have ever done has been justified in ways such as these. This is the reality of our nation. Exploiting and destroying those perceived as weak, in the way, or some kind of threat. Our legacy is the blood of the innocent.
@@michaelslowmin would you want that or not to exist at all? Your so called veterans that kept us liberated from nazi germany and fellow scientists who kept us ahead of the soviets are the reason you can stand here today away from the remains of tyranny in China and North Korea
@@mistersunshine1330 Um I'm not sure why you're calling them "so called veterans". They stopped the advance of the Nazis and if they're not veterans I don't know who is. To answer your point about staying ahead of the soviets: Is showing that you could make nukes faster worth the cost of destroying innocent people's way of life? Do you really think that was the difference between whether the US became a soviet state? To me it amounts to nothing more than a flex of military might for it's own sake at the cost of innocent lives. Nothing was gained from this.
It might interest you to know that it wasn't only the Americans who nuking the shit out of the Pacific Ocean, as France conducted 193 nuclear tests from 1966 to 1996 at Moruroa and Fangataufa atolls in French Polynesia, including 41 atmospheric tests until 1974 that exposed the local population, site workers and French soldiers to high levels of radiation.
Also, Britain, with the blessing of the Australian government, conducted their own atmospheric nuclear tests during the mid 1950's at a place called Maralinga in the out back, South Australian desert.
Effectively, they used the British and Australian servicemen as guinea pigs when they exploded the bombs.
The local Aboriginal people near the atomic test sites who were conveniently ignored (l mean they didn't even have the right to vote and weren't counted as Australian citizens-just flora and fauna) suffered mass radiation poisoning also.
All of those military personnel and the Aboriginal people who suffered from exposure to the radiation from the atomic tests had to fight for decades to receive compensation from the British and Australian governments, who it seemed callously and deliberately stone walled these people whose health deteriorated until they conveniently died of illnesses caused by the test explosions.
Oh yes indeed, all of the post world war 2 powers had some skin in the game, when it came to atmospheric nuclear testing in the Pacific and nearby Australia.
I haven't even mentioned the Soviet Union and Communist China with their own equally negligent atmospheric atomic testing either...
They should name a set of islands after the politicians involved with this "Nobranes Atol"...
My grandfather was apart of operation crosse roads. I even did a project on it in school. He waw part if it for only the early years after ww2. He was a photographer on the ship and he was also one of the people to go on the ships and and examine the submarines and their damage. I have a card saying what ship he was on and even and orginal photo of one of the bombs.
Business blaze is Simons best channel for sure! He should do all his channels in that format
no Ship:
No Ship ever:
Prinz Eugen: *SURVIVES A NUKE*
btw 2:58 its Prussian not Russian, "dont forget the SZ (ß)"
Price sirvives 2 nukes. Crossroads Able AND Baker
“By the time America is done with you, you’ll barely be able to support life at all”
This should be written on American money
14rs2 Not really considering we do countless aid missions and we did the Marshal plan in Europe
Besides the swimsuit Bikini has a few other contributions to pop culture. Namely in a form of a giant radioactive lizard that likes to attack Japan. And a certain sponge who lives in a pineapple
Honestly man, I love all your channels but I think Business Blaze is my new favorite.
Fun fact: the contamination of the Fukuru Maru from the Castle Bravo test was what inspired the original Godzilla movie
It’s actually a tragedy, Marshall Islanders losing their homes and countless USN and USMC exposed...ntm the environmental damage and the fact that the USN was warned by a memo signed by most of the Los Alamos professors that this would be a disaster
Shout out from New Zealand. Thank you to the U.S, France and England for not detonating nuclear weapons down in the south Pacific. Mighty big of you all.
Waht ? England testet Nukes in Australia
@@klestrep UK not England
1:40 - Chapter 1 - Before the bomb
5:05 - Chapter 2 - The beginning of armageddon
8:25 - Chapter 3 - The Exodus
12:00 - Mid roll ads
13:15 - Chapter 4 - The 1st nuclear disaster
16:20 - Chapter 5 - Castle bravo
19:35 - Chapter 6 - A home from home
I kept hearing "bikini a$$hole" at times lol. Great video though!
Now I can't unhear it
They evacuated the atoll...
Lol same here!!!! Had a good chuckle every time he said Bikini Atoll
13:25 I've heard of a cubic meter, and I've heard of a ton, but a cubic ton is a new one to me. Does that weigh more than a spherical ton?
HaHa Simon...Fogbreathers and their measurements.Explain that one?
BTW: how much volume/mass is contained in a Sperical Ton anyway? 🤔
tonne or ton?
@@CashelOConnolly The cubic ton is a measure of volume. It is no longer used in the United Kingdom but seems to be still in use in the United States. And most often used with rawmaterials such as timber, or wheat.
Love your work Simon, all the channels. Thank you so much for the fantastic shows. Stay safe.
Fun Fact: SpongeBob takes place in the ocean around the atoll and the characters in the show are mutated fish that can now talk.
There area few Marshallese who work for the US DOE that live on Bikini on 3 month rotations. They are raising crops to test how dangerous the food chain still is there. There is also site on Rongelap doing the same work. Rongelap currently has about 40 residents, and they are some of the nicest people I have ever met.
Castle-bravo was a mistake regarding the Lithium Deuteride fusion source, they wer'nt really sure how much would fuse, So they left it a mixture of two isotopes,Lithium6,and 7 i think,,
Correct. They knew how the bombs worked, not always the why. Given the potentially dangerous nature of what they were doing, a surprising amount of it was trial and error. Then reverse engineering the mistakes to figure out what they just saw.
Today it seems almost insane. But the people working on these projects were far ahead of anything science had done before. So there were few guidelines or warnings.
You got it, Andrew! The Lithium 7 really took off, and produced the unexpectedly high yield!
Hey Simon, you should do a video on Newgrange next. It's a massive Neolithic structure in Ireland that's older than the Pyramids (the oldest one being the Pyramid of Djoser at 2600 bc)and Stonehenge(3000bc) being built in 3200 bc. It has a door with a roof box above it that perfectly aligns with the sun on the Winter solstice and a roof so well made that it's still waterproof to this day. Archaeologists are baffled on how these people were able to build such a sophisticated structure before the advent of writing and the crane and how advanced their knowledge of the cosmos and the exact alignment of the sun was. Shows how skilled my ancestors were in construction techniques,lapidary design, mathematical calculations and astronomical observation.
And for April fools day you should do a video on Nat Tate and for pride month you should do Judy Garland.
Anyway great video, as always. Keep up the good work.
Thank you
I wonder what was used as a justification to use a habited atol as the testruction (sic) site? Wouldn’t it be more reasonable to use another atol where were no people to kick out.
Sadly ‘not white’ was probably good enough back then.
Kinda wondered on this myself. The United State's territory is ENORMOUS, there must have been other places to test at.
Like the island they tried to send the bikinis to...
They needed specific wind patterns and currents, as well as specific depth of the lagoon and size of the islands.
No doubt they looked for uninhabited atols first, and when they didn't find any took the one with the smallest population.
@@--enyo-- I am hoping you are just joking, because even if the US was super duper racist back then, it still would have been cheaper and quicker to use the uninhabited island if it was an acceptable test-site. So obviously there must have been other considerations to make bikini a better test area. And this is also considering the fact that before dropping the atomic bombs Japan the US dropped pamphlets warning to flee and of a weapon that would destroy their factories and major cities filled with "not white" people.
Yeah racism was definitely a thing back then, but this doesnt mean people didn't value all life to a degree.
Simon Whistler, the only man who is so distinguished that he does commercials for himself.
Simon, you gent. You and the crew are keeping this quarantine filled with content and keeping myself (and many others) amused. Entertaining and informative as always!
Amused?
Great video. I remembered while watching this I read a book about this in high school written from the perspective of an islander. Idk if it was a fictional account or a biography.
you should look into all the underground nuke testing. the desert footage is really fascinating and there was even one test done east of the Mississippi river which never gets talked about. one test in alaska is pretty creepy as you can see all the distant land and a lake literally jump up from the blast..
One of the most interesting stories to come out of the underground testing was the possible sending of a steel cap into space. Operation Plumbbob had many tests but Pascal B was a bomb tested in a shaft with a 1 ton steel plate covering the top of it. Upon detonation of the nuclear bomb the plate disappeared and could not be found. They went to check the high speed film to see if they could ascertain where it went but out of the hundreds of frames shot per second the plate only appeared in one of them. It was estimated that the plate was traveling in excess of 150,000mph or more than six times Earths escape velocity. That works out to be roughly 41 miles per second. They theorize that if the plate didn't burn up due to friction upon going through the atmosphere that it is now hurtling through space and could be the furthest traveled man made object ever put into space.
scifigunny762 - I didn’t know about those 2 tests. Can you post a link to more info?
A slightly little error in this video, Simon.
You're telling that the ground around Chernobyl can not be walked on, because it is still drenched by radio activity. Well, this is not entirely true. Today, 35 years after reactor 4 of the Chernobyl plant exploded, you can visit the area under guidance of a guide who knows exaxtly were you can walk, and were not. Generally, it's relatively save.
Wait.. they let the people back to Bikini? I know that the US military knows no rules but that is just dumb.
P.s They got evacuated again
As a child there was a cartoon show called Beanie and Cecil the sea monster. They made a joke out of this place and called it the “No bikini-atoll!”🤣
9:44 "the fish were inedible". I know there are a few species of puffer fish and some cold water sharks that can't be eaten, but to say an entire tropical Pacific lagoon is full of inedible fish is a bit tough to swallow.
Being tough to swallow is probably why they were "inedible".
Jokes aside, there's nearly never such a thing as "inedible", just "okay how do I make it edible". It's just that sometimes you have to bury the fish, let it rot for seasons, and then soak it in lye. (Lutefisk! That was done because the fish was otherwise incredibly toxic, and some madlad went "what if we make it rot in clay and then dunk it in soap???".)
A really good video thanks, what about a closer look at Runit island and the servicemen who had to work there?
Pete D and how Runit Dome on Enewetak Atoll is leaking nuclear waste.
I know someone who was at a test during the Korean war. They had the boats think target . Anchored at set distances from the island out further and further away. When they set off the bomb it was at a different island told to the crew. Instead of a distant island they were told one that would have put several islands separating them from the blast. They bombed the nearest island to the ships. First row vaporized. Official statement is those boats were empty. No fully crewed first 3 rows no survivors. We are talking 100's on each ship. Mia in Korea is how there loved ones were told. Yes all from the conflict whare the trail runs cold. All transferred top secret to the test. The government has shredded the whole paper trail. They refused the person I knew. VA sorry sailor no record of you being there. He provided them with a signed letter thanking him for his service at the blast by president Truman. Of course they wanted it for the record... he photocopied it and gave them one. Eventually they covered him with full disability somewhere around his 75th Birthday. Took a lot of effort and years to get recognized by our government.
Hi thank you for letting people know about marshall island 🇲🇭 although some of your stories are not true about our islands...but thanks
Not a B-52, a B-29. Your a decade or more to early.
*You’re
*too
If we’re going to be nitpicking
Liliana Bray got his ass
@DrakeIsSix There's generally at least one per episode. Frankly, I think Simon does it to see if we're paying attention.
@@CashelOConnolly You are missing the point. If he gets the most basic fact wrong can the more obscure facts correct.
@bluebloodbc True, but we know more about the world than insular yanks.
"Before I tell you about that catastrophe, let me point you to another catastrophe" 😂
... j/k, I love Business Blaze.
Next time, tell us about “Topless Island”...
Second it
me to??????????????????????????????????????????????????????
Here from the Megaprojects B-52 video, fantastic channel. I have yet to run into a gripe on any of your channels. All of them are educational and Business Blaze is pretty Amazing too.Thanks Simon and the Simon Whistler team.
hey simon, b 52's didnt yet exist at the time of operation crossroads. : ) otherwise spot on info.
im not the first or last to point it out. lol
I’m glad I found your channel. I love just learning about old war history.
Dunno why they picked an inhabited island paradise to blow up. Why not keep it in the same area as the Trinity test? Far fewer people care about an uninhabited desert. If you're gonna make a place radioactive for centuries why not just 1 spot rather than multiple? Also if cleanup is even part of the plan cheaper and easier to clean up 1 place than hundreds.
*”We spotted a fish that we never seen before”*
*Spongebob twerking*
With the name, Bikini, it would seem like a paradise to visit.
The French designer who designed the swimsuit named it after the Nuclear test. Because such a small swimsuit was outrageous at that time, Bikini Atoll being all over the news at the time, and the intonations of the word Bikini, suggesting nuclear explosions, "Bi" suggesting a prefix for "two" and "ini" suggesting a suffix for "tiny" it really was the perfect name for this super hot, outrageously tiny two-piece swimsuit.
M. B. Also a hint at who really holds power
U didnt pay attention to the video I see....🤫
@abuaimen28
Krusty Krab, Bikini bottom, Sandy Cheeks...Spongebob was an adult show masquerading as a kiddie cartoon.
You left out the part where the nuclear test awakened a nuclear dinosaur that went on to regularly attack Japan and occasionally save the world from extraterrestrial threats like the giant 3 headed Dragon that fires gravity beams.
The bikini nuclear tests are now declassified but ( sanitized ) so you can see how crazy and scary those tests really were.
I am amazed. I remember the news articles about the nuclear tests/exlplosins on Bikini atom. I never imagined how blithely the American government played with our futures.
I honestly hate the tests on the warships. Prinz Eugen is still at the Bikini atol and I whole heartedly wish she got salvaged and somewhat restroed as probably the only German WW2 ship able to be done so. Also sad that IJN Nagato was basicly at the epic center of that blast. Both would've been amazing museum ships later down the road.. Not be used as test subjects.
Does anyone remember "Beanie and Cecil" and the no-bikini atoll?
Ah, kids cartoons made for adults, lol... :D
Backroad Junkie YES!!!!! I just posted that!!!!🌈✌🏾👍🏾🤣
6:29....NO parachute attached to the bombs dropped on Japan. FYI
It would’ve been a lot better for the natives and cheaper for the United States to have brought them to the mainland and given them US citizenship. Poor people.
Sandy Delgado Or just not nuke their home.
Many of them have relocated to the US though I forget which state they live in.
Literally thought he kept saying “bikini asshole” had to check because I was sure I was wrong and I’m happy that I was 😂
Me too
WWII was the big budget sequel to WWII?
Simon I had a uncle that was at the Bikini Island test. He lived into his late 70's but died of a very rare brain cancer that from accounts from his son was a painful and retched death. Can you explore this?
Goddamn, why do we still have these weapons today? This was/is the pinnacle of hubris, yet we still "modernize" them to this day. Seriously, smh
*Pro tip:*
If you play at 75 percent speed, and place a piece of tape over your phone speaker Simon sounds like Patrick Stewart.
this video is eliciting a lot of emotions from me like anger and sadness. this is such a horrible thing we did. it's so hard to watch
America is no different from any other scummy country
My heart goes out to those affected.
If the tests at the atoll had been conducted with just a bit more care (and correct measurements), the atolls wouldn't be such a disaster. At least we didn't do what the Russians did, just picked a seemingly remote place and nuked the f* out of it with villages, rivers, and small lakes scattered about, and just told the many civilians that they were perfectly fine.
My grandfather was there for testing and what he described is unimaginable
America: “we are masters of hydrogen bombs” Stalin: *detonates tsar bomba*
Nikita Khrushchev, not Joseph Stalin.
@@codymoe4986 yeah but it didn’t sound as good that way
Hi Simon, Crossroads Able shot was dropped from a B-29, not a B-52.
"While World War 2 may have mostly passed the atoll by, the same could not be said about the wars big budget sequel." Oops 4:45
thought i was the only one to catch that
WW2's big budget sequel was the atomic age nuclear testing that started the US/Soviet cold war era....