Bikini Swimsuit Fashion Hits 65th Birthday Named in Atomic Warfare

by copythis

It's a birthday, one very special day for fans of summer. While it's made for women, it's biggest fan is probably men: The "bikini" turns 65 years old just one day after the Fourth of July--and it's name is derived from atomic warfare. Really.

Invented in 1946, the fashion swimsuit was dubbed "bikini" after Bikini Atoll in the Marshall Islands -- the site of atomic bomb testing.

Jacques Heim and Louis Reard introduced the bikini swimsuit to the U.S. while the government was doing post-war nuclear testing. And there is a reason for the swimsuit's name: A one-piece swimsuit, known as the "atome" had been dubbed the smallest womens' suit in the world. The bikini suit was a response to that swimsuit -- and the two-piece carried the slogan:
"smaller than the smallest bathing suit in the world".

It all equals a bad scientist's joke: Because the women's bikini was smaller than the one-piece "atome" and was comprised of two pieces, the joke was that the bikini "split the atome".