The Radium Girls

Let's talk about the almost forgotten 90s cartoon freakazoid 

Let's talk a nightmare on elm street and the origin of Freddy Kruger 

When Radium popped on to the scene in the early 1900s, it was called “liquid sunshine” and a “mythological superbeing.” Why? Because it was incredibly powerful and literally glowed. But then a few companies had the bright idea to start making watches with it. Today, Bailey tells ...  Show more

The Radium Girls painted watched with glow-in-the-dark radium in the 1920s and '30s. Most got sick, many died. This is their story. 

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Fellow Ridiculous Historians, we all know the inspiring and tragic story of Marie Curie -- however, not everyone is familiar with the absolute boom in radium-associated merchandise, which took the world by storm before the public understood the dangers of radiation. In today's ep ...  Show more

In the 1920s, dial-painters at US Radium's New Jersey factory began getting sick. They were diagnosed with syphilis and phossy jaw, but their symptoms didn't add up. The women suspected something about their job was making them fatally ill—but they were running out of time to sol ...  Show more