From 1946 to 1958 , the early years of the Cold War , the United States tested 67 nuclear weapons at its Pacific Proving Grounds located in the Marshall Islands , including the largest atmospheric nuclear test ever conducted by the U.S. , code named Castle Bravo . " The bombs had a total yield of 108,496 kilotons , over 7,200 times more powerful than the atomic weapons used during World War II . " With the 1952 test of the first U.S. hydrogen bomb , code named " Ivy Mike , " the island of Elugelab in the Enewetak atoll was destroyed . In 1956 , the United States Atomic Energy Commission regarded the Marshall Islands as " by far the most contaminated place in the world . " Nuclear claims between the U.S. and the Marshall Islands are ongoing , and health effects from these nuclear tests linger . Project 4.1 was a medical study conducted by the United States of those residents of the Bikini Atoll exposed to radioactive fallout . From 1956 to August 1998 , at least $ 759 million was paid to the Marshallese Islanders in compensation for their exposure to U.S. nuclear weapon testing
Castle Bravo
Castle Bravo
History of the Marshall Islands