Watch: “1945-1998″ by Isao Hashimoto

According to Tree Hugger:

This art project by Isao Hashimoto does a phenomenal job of showing us where and when we started obliterating pieces of the planet with nuclear weapons. In a short video, Hashimoto shows every nuclear bomb explosion on the Earth from 1945 when the US tested nuclear weapons before dropping the infamous bombs on Japan, to 1998 as India and Pakistan began testing their own weapons. It brings a whole new perspective to the debate on the use of nuclear technology.

The artist writes, “This piece of work is a bird’s eye view of the history by scaling down a month length of time into one second.  No letters are used for equal messaging to all viewers without language barriers.  The blinking light, sound and the numbers on the world map show when, where and how many experiments each country have conducted.  I created this work for the means of an interface to the people who are yet to know of the extremely grave, but present problem of the world.”

To learn more about the history of nuclear testing we highly suggest watching Radio Bikini. Nominated for an Academy Award, this documentary tells the eye-opening story of Bikini Atoll — one of the most terrifying tragedies of the nuclear age. The peaceful Pacific island was the unwitting site of atomic bomb tests conducted by the United States in 1946; extraordinary archival footage reveals the stark reality of these tests, which left the island uninhabitable for 40 years and exposed thousands of sailors to heavy doses of radiation.  For those interested Radio Bikini is currently available on Netflix’s “Watch Instantly” system.

Learn even more about the sordid history of nuclear bomb testing around the globe, including the American-made Castle Bravo disaster of 1954 via Wikipedia.

My question is why can’t America ever be first in something positive like education or health care?