Operation Crossroads

Bombs and the Bikini Atoll

The haute beachwear known as the bikini was named after a string of islands turned into a nuclear wasteland by atomic bomb testing.
Blackfoot Albatross chick

The Strange Tale of the Pacific Ocean Biological Survey Program

In the 1960s, over seventy scientists and graduate students traveled to U.S. outlying islands as part of the Pacific Ocean Biological Survey Program.
Inky the octopus swimming in a tank at the National Aquarium of New Zealand in Napier, New Zealand. Courtesy of the National Aquarium of New Zealand

The Flight of Inky the Octopus

Inky the Octopus made one of the natural world's most daring escapes when he somehow breached his tank to get to the Pacific. But how did he do it?