358-The Radium Girls

Futility Closet by Greg Ross

Sep 13, 202130:34Society & Culture

In 1917, a New Jersey company began hiring young women to paint luminous marks on the faces of watches and clocks. As time went on, they began to exhibit alarming symptoms, and a struggle ensued to establish the cause. I...

Related Episodes

Continue listening to more episodes from Futility Closet.

365-Lateral Thinking Puzzles

Nov 29, 2021 - 32:00

For this final episode of the Futility Closet podcast we have eight new lateral thinking puzzles — play a...

364-Sidney Cotton's Aerial Reconnaissance

Nov 22, 2021 - 34:12

One of the most remarkable pilots of World War II never fired a shot or dropped a bomb. With his pioneeri...

363-The Lambeth Poisoner

Nov 15, 2021 - 33:34

In 1891, a mysterious figure appeared on the streets of London, dispensing pills to poor young women who...

362-The Leatherman

Oct 25, 2021 - 33:14

In 1856, a mysterious man appeared on the roads of Connecticut and New York, dressed in leather, speaking...

361-A Fight Over Nutmeg

Oct 18, 2021 - 29:30

In 1616, British officer Nathaniel Courthope was sent to a tiny island in the East Indies to contest a Du...

360-Haggard's Dream

Oct 11, 2021 - 30:38

In 1904, adventure novelist H. Rider Haggard awoke from a dream with the conviction that his daughter's d...

359-Stranded in Shangri-La

Oct 4, 2021 - 30:03

In 1945, a U.S. Army transport plane crashed in New Guinea, leaving three survivors marooned in the islan...

357-Scenes From an Earthquake

Sep 6, 2021 - 33:45

The San Francisco earthquake of 1906 is remembered for its destructive intensity and terrible death toll....