![VENUS ASCENDING](/images/headline/7232.png) Mid-century sex symbol provides inspiration for nuclear erotica. ![](/images/postimg/venus_ascending.jpg)
This unusual piece of art was made by a French artist named Jacques Puiseux, whose work we've shared here before. We happened to be in contact with him recently, and he sent this our way to enjoy. He painted it back in 1999, and it suggests Brigitte Bardot and the French nuclear tests at Mururoa Atoll, combined to create “a graphic pun of a sex bomb.” Appropriately, he calls it “Vénus Atomica.” We dig it, and Jacques' other art too, which you can see by clicking his keywords below. Just a little something different for you this lovely Thursday. Also, Jacques has a Flickr gallery here.
![STAR BRIGHT](/images/headline/4056.png) Last star you see in your life. ![](/images/postimg/star_bright.jpg)
This photo shows the French nuclear test codenamed Aldébaran, after an orange giant star in the constellation Taurus. If the photo were in color, the light from the explosion would indeed be orange at this stage, but we actually prefer this black and white shot. It was France's first nuclear test, to be followed by 209 more, including 50 in the open atmosphere. Most took place on on Mururoa Atoll, leading to rampant radioactivity which the French government managed to keep secret until just a few years ago. Aldébaran was detonated today in 1966.
![PEGASE IN FLIGHT](/images/headline/3544.png) It doesn't look like much now but wait until it spreads its wings. ![](/images/postimg/pegase_in_flight.jpg)
This image shows the first instant of the French nuclear test Pégase, which took place at Mururoa Atoll in French Polynesia today in 1970. Pégase is of course French for Pegasus, but this particular aerial phenomenon isn't something you ride through the sky to perform acts of heroism. The protrusions at the bottom of the plasma ball are wires used to stabilize the testing tower vaporizing, a phenomenon you can see in better detail here and here. You can also see a typical testing tower with wires intact here.
![GREEN INFERNO](/images/headline/2992.png) Mass destruction as a party balloon. ![](/images/postimg/green_inferno.jpg)
Above is a photo of the French nuclear test codenamed Tamouré, a 50 kiloton airdrop at Mururoa Atoll, Pacific Test Area, French Polynesia. It was the first time the French dropped a nuclear device from an airplane. The photo has the same weird ass green color as the Betelgeuse test we showed you a few years ago, but we don’t know why that is. Exposure time? Film stock? French photog getting all artistic trying make the horrifying reality of the shot a bit more cheerful? We don’t know. But the image was made this week in 1966.
![TAKING ATOLL](/images/headline/2518.png) Old nuclear tests threaten to become current event. ![](/images/postimg/taking_atoll.jpg)
Above, a photo of the French nuclear test Phoebe, conducted at Mururoa Atoll, yesterday 1971. Mururoa was the site of 193 nuclear tests and today is geologically unstable and in danger of collapsing into the sea. If that happens it would release dangerous levels of radioactivity into the Pacific currents.
![A DROP IN THE OCEAN](/images/headline/2460.png) What’s another nuclear bomb, more or less? ![](/images/postimg/a_drop_in_the_ocean.jpg)
This nuclear test, which was codenamed Dione, was a 34-kiloton blast conducted by France in the South Pacific at Mururoa Atoll, which along with its sister atoll Fangataufa was the site of nearly two hundred atomic detonations. The bomb was named after one of the thousands of Océanides, who in Greek mythology were aquatic nymphs born of their father Ocean and their mother the sea goddess Tethys. We only mention all that because we love how the French can poeticize even the worst thing ever created by humanity. Anyway, the test was today in 1971, and if that seems late for an aboveground test, it wasn’t—France exploded its last nuclear bomb on Mururoa in 1996.
![MOMENT OF CONCEPTION](/images/headline/1488.png) Doing it the French way. ![](/images/postimg/moment_of_conception.jpg)
Above, an eerie shot of the French nuclear test Betelgeuse, one of more than two-hundred tests conducted by France over the course of thirty-six years. This one is from 1966, and took place on September 11, but we posted it today rather than in September because it’s incorrectly listed on many websites as occurring today. The location is French Polynesia and the event was strongly protested by the potentially downwind nations of New Zealand, Australia, and Japan, but those complaints were ignored. This exposure was made near the instant of detonation, and the brightly lit protrusions are stabilizing wires attached to the bomb platform vaporizing. You can see a better example of the same phenomenon here.
![SMOKE SIGNALS](/images/headline/395.png) This world, then the fireworks. ![](/images/postimg/smoke_signals_01.jpg) ![](/images/postimg/smoke_signals_02.jpg) ![](/images/postimg/smoke_signals_03.jpg)
French nuclear test Licorne, Mururoa Atoll, French Polynesia, July 3, 1970. Note: this explosion in its many stages appears all over the internet misidentified as the Canopus blast from August 1968. However these photos are from Atolls de l'atome, a definitive book about French nuclear testing in the Pacific, and are there identified by author Bernard Dumortier as Licorne.
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The headlines that mattered yesteryear.
2003—Hope Dies
Film legend Bob Hope dies of pneumonia two months after celebrating his 100th birthday. 1945—Churchill Given the Sack
In spite of admiring Winston Churchill as a great wartime leader, Britons elect
Clement Attlee the nation's new prime minister in a sweeping victory for the Labour Party over the Conservatives. 1952—Evita Peron Dies
Eva Duarte de Peron, aka Evita, wife of the president of the Argentine Republic, dies from cancer at age 33. Evita had brought the working classes into a position of political power never witnessed before, but was hated by the nation's powerful military class. She is lain to rest in Milan, Italy in a secret grave under a nun's name, but is eventually returned to Argentina for reburial beside her husband in 1974. 1943—Mussolini Calls It Quits
Italian dictator Benito Mussolini steps down as head of the armed forces and the government. It soon becomes clear that Il Duce did not relinquish power voluntarily, but was forced to resign after former Fascist colleagues turned against him. He is later installed by Germany as leader of the Italian Social Republic in the north of the country, but is killed by partisans in 1945.
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