July 5th, The Day Churchill Gave Us The Bikini(?)

Despite having been loved for his strength during WWII, Winston Churchill is voted out of office on this day in 1945.  Seems all the returning war veterans knew that the Conservative Hard-Ass was good for war, but not good for workers.  They must have remembered all his union-busting, Tory activities before the war, more precisely his sending in armed soldiers anytime workers threatened to ask for better working conditions or wages.  The most notable was Churchill’s sending in soldiers to stop a strike by the Tonypandy minors in 1910.  This worked so well in defending the corporate elite, that Churchill used it again a year later in Liverpool where two strikers would be shot-down in cold blood simply for asking for better working conditions.  There are other reasons Churchill probably didn’t get re-elected in 1945, the world was becoming less racist and Churchill was definitely not.  This is obvious from such statements of his as, “I do not admit that a wrong has been done to the Red Indians of America...By the fact that a stronger race, a higher-grade race, a more worldly wise race has come in and taken their place.”

Other racial slurs by Churchill include, “I cannot understand this squeamishness about the use of gas” — this was in regards to his use of nerve gas to beat back an Iraqi revolt in 1920.  Then who can forget Churchill’s distaste for one of the greatest men of the 20th century, Mahatma Gandhi, who Churchill considered a “fake” and had hoped he would starve to death (Don’t believe me?  Google it).

Okay, Churchill did probably save the world as we know it.  I’ll give him that, but in a roundabout way, Churchill gave us something men would adore for years to come, because exactly one year later on July 5th, 1946, French designer Louis Reard unveils a daring two-piece swimsuit inspired by the U.S. atomic test that took place off a Bikini island, Reard dubbed the new fashion bikini.  However, this bikini was nothing knew for Churchill, for British women had already worn a bikini that consisted of a halter top and shorts in the 1930's when wartime rationing of fabric saw the removal of the skirt panel and other superfluous material.  

So, in a very strange way we have Churchill to thank for the bikini, now don't we?

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In ancient Egypt, July 5 is sacred to the goddess Maat, who presides over truth and wisdom.