Fifty years ago in Tahiti, three innovative Americans built the first overwater bungalow, thereby giving vacationers direct access to the island’s wondrous lagoons.

It changed the state of the country’s tourism (and our Instagram feeds) forever.

So today, we’re commemorating that little-known factoid the only way we know how: a turquoise-dappled slideshow of the most spectacular overwater bungalows on the planet.

We were going to say “in the universe,” but, hey, you never know...