55 years ago today, the United States tested a hydrogen bomb over Namu island, in the Bikini Atoll, Pacific Ocean. The 15 megaton bomb exploded at 15,000 feet, causing a four-mile fireball, 500 times brighter than the Sun. It was the first airborne test of the hydrogen bomb—created in 1951 by Edward Teller and Stanisław Ulam—and yet another nuclear test of the long Bikini Atoll series. By then, another kind of atomic weapon was already being tested in beaches all around the world, one of the most fascinating pieces of garment ever devised by humankind: The bikini.
The origin of the bikini It was in May 1946 when Louis Réard—a French car engineer who at the time was running his moms lingerie shop in Paris—introduced two small pieces of clothing, advertising them as “the smallest bathing suit in the world.” Simultaneously and unknowingly, fashion designer Jacques Heim was working on a similar design. Réard named his invention the bikini because of the Bikini Atoll nuclear tests. He thought that everyone would be shocked by the risqué display of curves and belly buttons. He was right. During many years, the bikini caused more surprise than any of the nuclear tests conducted by the United States and the Soviet Union. The joke at the time was that that the “bikini” split the “atom”, because it was introduced right after a tiny single-piece bathing suit called the Atome.
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