May - Operation Redwing begins at Enewetak and Bikini. A total of 17 nuclear tests, including several hydrogen bombs, are detonated. November U.S. officials give the Enewetak Islanders living on Ujelang $25,000 cash and a $150,000 trust fund (earning 3 1/3 percent annually) as compensation. Bikini Islanders living on Kili are given $25,000 cash and a $300,000 trust fund (yielding about $15 per person annually). Throughout the 1950s, both the Bikinians and Enewetakese face food shortages and repeated bouts of near starvation, as their "temporary" islands prove difficult and inhospitable.
1957
July - Rongelap is declared safe for rehabitation "in spite of slight lingering radiation." The Rongelap people, who have been living temporarily in Ejit Island, Majuro, return to Rongelap. Brookhaven National Laboratory scientists report about Rongelap: "Even though the radioactive contamination of Rongelap Island is considered perfectly safe for human habitation, the levels of activity are higher than those found in other inhabited locations in the world. The habitation of these people on the island will afford most valuable ecological radiation data on human beings."
1958
May - Operation Hardtack begins at Enewetak and Bikini, with 32 tests, including several hydrogen bombs. August The last nuclear detonation in the Marshall Islands takes place on August 18, bringing to 66 the total of nuclear weapons tests at Bikini and Enewetak.
1963
The first thyroid tumors begin appearing among the Rongelap people exposed to the Bravo test in 1954. Also, a higher than normal incidence of growth retardation among young Rongelap Islanders is noted by U.S. doctors.
1966
January - The U.S. Congress approves an exgratia payment of $950,000 (about $11,000 per capita) to the exposed Rongelap people for injuries resulting from their exposure in 1954.
1969
October - Bikini Atoll is declared safe for rehabitation by U.S. officials. "There's virtually no radiation left and we can find no discernible effect on either plant or animal life," says the AEC.
1972
October - Because it is not satisfied with information provided by the AEC, the Bikini Council votes not to return to Bikini as a community, but says it will not prevent individuals from returning. Several Bikini families move back to Bikini into newly built homes.
November - John Anjain's son, Lekoj, who was one year old when exposed to fallout on Rongelap in 1954, dies of leukemia at the National Cancer Institute in Bethesda, Maryland.
1973
AEC draft report, not publicly released, concludes that Bravo fallout may have contaminated as many as 18 atolls and islands, including Kwajalein and Majuro.
1975
June - During regular monitoring at Bikini, radiological tests show "higher levels of radioactivity than originally thought" and it "appears to be hotter or questionable as to safety," states a Department of Interior official.
August - AEC surveys suggest some Bikini ground wells are too radioactive for safe use, and that the consumption of pandanus, breadfruit and coconut crabs needs to be prohibited.
October - The Bikinians file suit in U.S. federal court demanding a complete scientific survey of Bikini and other northern Marshall Islands be conducted.
1976
July - The U.S. Congress approves $20 million and military logistic support for a nuclear cleanup of Enewetak Atoll. A Brookhaven National Laboratory report on Rongelap shows that 20 of 29, or 69 percent of the Rongelap children who were under 10 years old in 1954 have developed thyroid tumors. The people of Utrik, whose original exposure in 1954 of 14 rads of radiation was less than one-twelfth that of Rongelap, suddenly show a higher rate of thyroid cancer than the Rongelap people, indicating the long latency period before health problems develop from low level radiation exposure.
