Radium was discovered by Marie Curie and her husband Pierre in 1898.
In 1903, the Royal Academy of Sciences awarded Marie and Pierre Curie and Henri Becquerel the Nobel Prize in Physics, making Marie the first woman to win the prize.
Later, in 1911, she would win her second Nobel for isolating radium, discovering another element (polonium), and for her research into the new phenomenon of radioactivity, a word she coined herself.
By 1910, radium was manufactured synthetically in the U.S. But before the effects of radiation exposure were well understood, radium ended up in a lot of crazy places for its purported magical healing properties and its glow-in-the-dark novelty.
1. In Chocolate
Food products containing radium, like the Radium Schokolade chocolate bar manufactured by Burk & Braun and Hippman-Blach bakery’s Radium Bread, made with radium water, were popular overseas until they were discontinued in 1936.
2. In Water
Radium water crocks like the Revigator stored a gallon of water inside a radium-laced bucket; drinking the water would cure any number of ailments, from arthritis to impotence to wrinkles.
3. In Toys And Nightlights
The Radiumscope, a toy sold as late as 1942, offered a glimpse of radium in action. Noting radium’s famed luminescence, the ad also mentions that the radiumscope could double as a “wonderful” nightlight, since it “glows with a weird light in a dark room.”
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