Today's Crossword Puzzle

(Photo: The Great American Diving Co.)

The Bikini Atoll (pictured above) was an answer to a clue in my crossword puzzle today. I had to Google it and I learned something new and entirely disturbing about our world history.

First of all I had no idea what an atoll was. Now I know that an atoll is "a circle of coral reef that surrounds a lagoon and is itself surrounded by open sea." The Bikini Atoll is part of a group of islands located in the Pacific Ocean. America captured the Atoll from the Japanese during World War II, convinced the Bikinians to leave and proceeded to test nuclear weapons on the atoll.
Displaced from their homes and their way of life, the Bikinians drew increasingly near to starvation before they were allowed to return home. Even when the did return home, they found that their atoll was polluted with nuclear waste and worse the Bikinians themselves were made sick by the nuclear blasts. This a really condensed version of the story and you can read more here at the Bikini website. But from what i understand the Nuclear Claims Tribunal awarded the people of Bikini $563,315,500 in compensation in March 2001 but they haven't been paid yet.

So, so sad. All this from a crossword puzzle.