Between 1948 and 1958, the U.S. military detonated 43 atomic bombs here. After agreeing to a 1958 temporary moratorium on nuclear testing with the United Kingdom and the Soviet Union, the U.S. began using the atoll as a conventional and bioweapons testing ground. For the next 18 years, the U.S. …
Five thousand miles from Los Angeles, the U.S. turned the white-sand beaches of the Marshall Islands into testing grounds for some of the most powerful and destructive weapons ever designed — and buried the radioactive waste in a concrete dome. As sea levels rise, the crumbling dome is at risk of leaking its contents into the waters around the islands.