On this very day, 51 years ago...

The world witnessed the birth of the bikini. On July 5, 1945.

here's a brief history.

Louis Reard (ray-YARD) had this problem. He had designed Something that would stir the masses. But he needed a name for it, something exotic, bold, and eye opening. Four days before he was to show the world his new bikini in Paris, the U.S. Military provided him with a name. They exploded a nuclear device near several small islands in the Pacific known as the "Bikini Atoll". On July 5th, 1945, he unveiled the bikini. lthough he would later claim he named the bikini after the islands and not the atomic blast, he was clearly taking advantage of a "hot topic". Another Frenchmen, Jacques Heim, had created his own two piece bathing suit, which he called "The Atome", and he described it as "The world's smallest bathing suit.

Reard called his "Smaller than the world's smallest bathing suit."

Reard's "bikini" was so small, in fact, that no Parisian models at the time would wear it on the runway. He hired Micheline Bernardini, who had no qualms about strolling around in a bikini, seeing as her day job was a nude dancer at the Casino de Paris. Bernardini was not what you'd a classic beauty, but after photos of her in a reclining pose hit the press, she was swamped with fan mail, close to 50,000 letters.

51 years later, it seems that this day would go by without much fanfare. Nothing could be more wrong, that's what i say!

so here's to 51 years of women's liberation!

here's to 51 years of making beachwear more comfortable to women!

here's to 51 years of making the beach scenery more pleasing to the eye!

and of course...

here's to 51 years of leaving little left to the imagination of men everywhere. :D