The bikini is named after an atoll used for atomic bomb tests.
Frenchman Louis Réard unveiled it in July 1946, four days after a nuclear blast at Bikini Atoll.
More amazing facts
- 1944 The US Army had a unit of artists armed with inflatable tanks.
- 1945 · 1947 Mike the chicken lived for 18 months without a head.
- 1945 The first general-purpose electronic computer weighed 27 tonnes.
- 1945 · 1952 The inventor of the theremin also made one of the first bugs.
- 1947 The first real computer bug was an insect.
- 1947 · 1963 Wojtek, the bear veteran of Monte Cassino, ended his days at Edinburgh Zoo in 1963.