A small ring of coral islands in the Pacific Ocean named Bikini Atoll remains uninhabitable to humans after it was used as a site for nuclear weapon testing.
After atomic bombs were dropped on the Japanese cities of Hiroshima and Nagasaki at the end of World War 2, US military leaders began plotting extra nuclear weapons tests.
They landed on the remote location of Bikini Atoll – which has a land mass of just two square miles, and is part of the larger Marshall Islands chain.
Bikini Atoll met the military’s criteria – as detailed in a report by the Natural Resources Defense Council – was under US control, and was far from shipping lanes, yet within 1,000 miles of a base from which bombers could take off.
