by and released on the streaming platform Nebula first. We thought, though, that this

one in particular would be important to get out to the widest audience possible given

how important the subject matter is. It is, though, going to be one of the last Nebula

originals uploaded to YouTube as we're phasing that out. I hope this serves as evidence for

you on just how high-quality the content on Nebula is, and, each week, new originals come

out from some of the top educational content creators. If you want to see more, Nebula

is available through a bundle deal with CuriosityStream for just $15 a year at their current sale

pricing, and that's available only by going to CuriosityStream.com/Wendover. Now, to the

Marshall Islands. Now. The legend is that the Marshall Islands

were created by a god whose name was Lowa. He descended on the atoll Ailinglaplap. And

he created the islands by saying Lowa and islands and there were islands. Lowa and people

and there were people. Lowa and fish and there were fish and on and on like that.

So our land, you know, like our mothers, you know, they provide for everything and our

ocean--same thing. We've always thought about the ocean as our

friends right now it's becoming a threat to us. You know when you find a globe and you

give it a whirl and it goes around and around and around and then as the going slows, your

eyes come to rest on a dash of color that has never caught your attention before? A

spot that sits on the part of the sphere you normally spin right past? An island so isolated

that you're not even sure how you'd explain where it is? Somewhere whose story is seen

as insignificant? A land that's lost to most of the world; left out of the history

books apart from a passing mention? That place is here—the Republic of the Marshall Islands.

But unknown, untold, unremembered places aren't unique. What makes the Marshall Islands'

story singular is not that's it's unrecognized from above, but because it's under siege

from below, and it's only when you see it from in the middle that you can understand

why. Go on, take a look. You won't have the chance for long.

We can talk more about the end of their world later, but first I've got to tell you about

what we've got here. It's a small nation, the Marshall Islands, with a bit over 50,000

residents and 70 square miles of land, split up into 29 atolls—thin rings of land encircling

saltwater lagoons. While significant populations can be found on 13 of those atolls, over half

of the Marshallese people can be found on this one, Majuro. About 28,000 live on the

capital atoll, and none of those 28,000 live more than a few-minutes walk from the ocean.

The furthest you can get from the water is about 2,000 feet or 600 meters inland, but

that's an anomaly. In most spots, water flanks you closely on both sides. In some

spots, the atoll gets so thin that you could stand in the lagoon and have a conversation

with someone standing in the ocean. Life on a remote, sunny, coral atoll may sound

idyllic, but the population density of Majuro—greater than that of Bahrain, Bermuda, or Bangladesh—has

not been kind to the mother atoll. In a part of the world usually thought of as pristine,

sparse, and pastoral, Majuro is instead gritty, overcrowded, and urbanized. It's far from

an island paradise. “Based on the 2011 census, which is the

last census we had, the average household size on Majuro was about seven people and

household income is about sixteen thousand dollars in that neighborhood file. Sixteen

thousand divided by seven. You know, if you can, that can be a challenge. That can be

tough.” Here's the problem: some places are poor

because they haven't yet seized their opportunity. Others are poor because they have no opportunity.

Majuro is in that second category. “Characteristics of the economy here in

the islands is, you know, you're looking at fish, coconuts, people, I mean, outside of

that our natural resources are fairly scarce, and then combined with our challenges with

education and skills attainment, it makes it even more challenging with people being

laid off her third largest natural resource. There are some major inhibitors for sustaining

economic growth, expanding the economy here in the islands.”

Like many small islands nations, the Marshall Islands doesn't have too much in the way

of natural resources worth exporting, and even when it does manage to produce something

people might want to buy, the cost of shipping it to those potential buyers will have pumped

up the price so much that it's no longer worth it. One of the very few things they

make decent business of selling abroad is copra, or dried coconut meat, which is produced

mainly on outer atolls and then brought into Majuro for processing. It's a work-intensive

process mostly conducted by families who form informal assembly lines, getting paid 50 cents

a pound—and even that low wage is the result of heavy government subsidies.

Because creating viable export goods is so difficult, most of the jobs in the Marshall

Islands are either in government, or the subsistence economy—in other words, most people in the

Marshall Islands are providing services or making goods exclusively for the Marshall

Islands, which leaves very little opportunity for growth. But, the country does have one

tiny little asset that keeps it running—its location. A location that makes the Marshall

Islands attractive to one of the world's biggest businesses—the US Military. The

American military presence can be found mainly on Kwajalein Atoll, which serves as a key

test site for the US ballistic missile defense system, among other purposes. In the end,

it's simple logic: The US Military wants access to the Marshall Islands, the Marshall

Islands wants money and security, and thus, an agreement exists—the Compact of Free

Association. “So the Compact of Free Association, it

basically lays the foundation for the relationship between the United States and the freely associated

states.” “One section of the compact deals with the relationship between our peoples

and it allows for qualified citizens to live and work and study in the United States without

a visa. There is another section of the compact that generally governs economics and it provides

for grants and services, all kinds of USG assistance coming to the Marshall Islands,

and the third big section of the compact has to do with security provisions. The United

States is the guarantor of security in the Marshall Islands.”

It's difficult to overstate the significance of the compact—it's the basis for the

entire modern economic and political system of the Marshalls—and while each of the three

sections has an enormous impact on the country, perhaps none is more consequential than the

second: financial aid. “The Marshalls are heavily dependent on

money from donors or from the United States. That's a tremendous part of the national income,

upwards of 70, 80 percent.” “The U.S. provides approximately 100 million dollars

every year to the RMI as a combination of grants and services and programs.”

Now, it's a big world out there, and there are quite a few places the US could send $100

million a year to in exchange for military access, so why here? Why is there this strange

partnership between one of the world's largest superpowers and one of the world's smallest

countries? Well, like most strange things, it came as the result of millions of years

of chance and circumstance. About 70 million years ago, 29 ancient volcanoes

in what we would now call the North Pacific came to life and spewed out lava which quickly

cooled and built up into under-ocean volcanic structures until they grew so much that they

emerged above the water and became islands. Around these islands, coral began to form,

eventually coalescing into what's known as a fringing coral reef, which encircled

each island. Time went on, the dinosaurs ruled, then died or became birds, then mammals started

mattering, and so on and so on, and as that all happened those islands were slowly eroding

and undergoing subsidence—they slowly sunk into the sea. Eventually, the islands disappeared

under the ocean, but the coral reefs that had formed around them remained. It is these

29 rings of coral, called atolls, that make up what's now known as the Marshall Islands.

Sometime, millions of years later, but 4,000 years before today, the first Marshallese

settlers arrived on the islands, coming from either here, here, here, or here—or some

combination of those places. They split the atolls into two chains: the eastern Ralik,

or sunrise chain, and the western Ratak, or sunset chain. From those early Marshallese,

eight clans emerged, of which, four became dominant. The “chee-tea” conquered Northern

Ralik, the “arab-ra-joey” took southern Ralik, and the “roo-may-your” clan conquered

nearly all of Ratak, but then gave nearly all of it to their offspring, of the “rah-no”

clan. These early Marshallese wore traditional clothing,

which looked like this, lived in large community-based homes, which looked like this, and practiced

a religion that involved complex dances and tattoos, which looked like this.

The first Western explorers to find the Marshall Islands were Spaniards—and there were a

few of them. The first one was this guy, in 1526, then this guy in 1529, and then this

guy in 1530. Over the next three hundred years, more explorers stopped through the Marshalls—including

Frenchmen, Russians, and this guy, British Captain John Charles Marshall in 1788, after

whom the islands were named on Western maps. Technically, during this time, the Spanish

claimed sovereignty over the Marshall Islands as part of the Spanish East Indies, which

included all of this, but that claim was largely just theoretical. The Spanish never had a

formal administration, never tried to exert influence, and never even really visited apart

from those early explorers, whose only real impact had been giving the Marshallese European

diseases. Much more relevant to the actual history of

the Marshalls was the presence of these people: Boston missionaries who first arrived in 1857

aboard the Morning Star. They landed here, on Ebon atoll and were met by Chief Kabua,

whose great, great—some number of greats—grandson was the first president of the Marshall Islands,

and whose some greater number of greats grandson is the current president. Chief Kabua allowed

the missionaries to stay there, where they began spreading Christianity throughout the

islands. Not only were they teaching them about this guy and this book, they also actively

changed Marshallese culture, even going so far as to ban traditional tattooing and dancing

because they referenced the traditional Marshallese religion.

Soon, the Marshall Islands changed even more, as the first genuine Western settlers, the

Germans, began to make residence in the islands. In 1875 they signed a Treaty of Friendship

with Chief Kabua, and developed a consulate, trading posts, and economic ties, eventually

buying the Marshalls from Spain in 1885, the same year they worked with Chief Kabua to

make the Marshall Islands an official German protectorate. Also, importantly, they brought

in more missionaries who spread even more Christianity.

But then, in 1914, the Germans decided to invade here, which led to here invading here,

and then here invading here, and then here invading here, and then here invading here,

and also, not that many people paid attention to it, the Japanese invading here: the Marshall

Islands. Japan took the Marshalls in part for strategic reasons, in part for economic

reasons. After all, even in the final years of German rule, they controlled over 80% of

the island's trade. Once World War I ended and all these people got together to sign

the Treaty of Versailles, the Council of the League of Nations gave control of the Marshall

Islands to the Japanese. While in power, they expanded their administration, introduced

Japanese culture, and moved about 1,000 Japanese citizens to the islands.

But then, because of some things going on here and here and also here, the Japanese

decided to drop bombs here, which led to the United States entering World War II and eventually

taking the Marshalls from the Japanese in 1944. And then came this:

When the United States dropped atomic bombs on Hiroshima and Nagasaki, it began a new

chapter in the world's history: the nuclear age. For some, it was exciting. There were

mushroom cloud cakes, Miss Atomic beauty pageants, and talk of unlimited clean energy, unparalleled

military dominance, and an everlasting world peace. But, of course, the enduring legacy

of nuclear weapons is not peace or energy, but destruction. And while what happened in

Hiroshima and Nagasaki can be found in any book of modern history, there's another

chapter of the nuclear story that's told far less often: that of the Marshall Islands.

“So what happened at the end of World War 2 was there had already been three nuclear

weapons detonated—one in New Mexico and then Hiroshima and Nagasaki—but the United

States at that time, not just the United States, the Russians, too—they wanted to increase

their knowledge about the new nuclear testing, and so they needed a testing ground, and when

they looked around the globe, they needed several requirements for a proving ground

for their nuclear testing—it had to be out of the way of major airline and shipping routes,

had to be under the control of the United States, had to have a really wide area lagoon

to anchor the ships to do the testing with, somewhere really far out of the way, and they

looked around the map and they saw Bikini.” Bikini Atoll sits at the northern end of the

Ralik chain, 2.3 square miles of land encircling a 229 square mile lagoon. It was perfect:

the right size, the right shape, the right location, and the right political status,

as the US had been given jurisdiction over the Marshall Islands at the end of the war.

And so, onto tiny Bikini Atoll, the United States moved in 42,000 personnel on 242 ships,

and began to experiment with the greatest power ever unleashed by mankind.

First there was the Crossroads Able bomb, 21 kilotons, far greater than Little Boy,

the 15 kiloton bomb dropped on Hiroshima; then, Crossroads Baker, 23 kilotons; but these

were nothing compared to what came next: Castle Bravo. Detonated on March 1, 1954, this bomb

produced the most powerful explosion the world had ever seen—15 megatons; one thousand

times more powerful than the Hiroshima bomb. For the United States, it was a triumph: the

greatest example yet of nuclear technology's potential. For Nerje Joseph, on neighboring

Rongelap Atoll, it was the start of a long nightmare.

“My name is Nerje Joseph. I come from Rongelap…and then I was in Rongelap in 1954, nuclear detonation.”

Nerje was only eight on Bravo Day. Today, at 74, she still remembers it vividly.