An Abbreviated History of Johnston Atoll

Historian and founding member of the Atomic Museum, Robert Friedrichs, will share the strange and true story of Johnston Atoll – a small uninhabited island in the middle of the Pacific Ocean developed into a Naval Defensive Sea Area and Airspace Reservation during World War II, before becoming a hub for nuclear testing in the 1950s and 1960s. Johnston Atoll was associated with nuclear tests like Starfish Prime, a 1.4 Megaton device that detonated at an extremely high altitude with effects reaching into outer space, and Bluegill Prime, a misfire that was set to self-destruct on its own launchpad. The atoll was later used in bioweapon testing and chemical weapon storage for toxins like Agent Orange before undergoing a decades-long contamination cleanup process that even included the eradication of millions of invasive crazy ants. Today, it is a National Wildlife Refuge and is home to dozens of species of seabirds and a sanctuary for its surrounding marine life.

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