American Experience — Season 1, Episode 2: Radio Bikini

Episode synopsis

While the U.N. debated strategies for control of atomic energy, the U.S. Navy was preparing two highly-publicized nuclear tests. Seven hundred fifty cameras were shipped to Bikini to be used for a major propaganda film. Bikinians had no say about turning their idyllic island into an atomic test site. Forty years later, their home would still be too contaminated to support human life.

About American Experience

TV's most-watched history series brings to life the compelling stories from our past that inform our understanding of the world today.

More episodes from Season 1

• E1The Great San Francisco Earthquake
• E3Indians, Outlaws and Angie Debo
• E4Eric Sevareid's Not So Wild A Dream
• E5The Life and Times of Rosie the Riveter
• E6Do You Mean There Are Still Real Cowboys?
• E7Kennedy vs. Wallace: A Crisis Up Close
• E8Geronimo and the Apache Resistance
• E9Let Us Now Praise Famous Men: Revisited
• E10That Rhythm, Those Blues
• E11The Radio Priest
• E12Hearts and Hands
• E13Views of a Vanishing Frontier