Carter Roy

It would burn his skin, destroy his eyesight, probably kill him.

Marie Curie suffered radiation burns handling the stuff.

She eventually dies from radium exposure.

So the scientists know.

They've known for years.

But in 1917, there's no internet, no evening news the way we know it today.

Scientific journals don't reach the average American, and the companies selling radium products are spending a fortune on advertising.

The marketing is so good that it drowns out the science.

As far as the public is concerned, radium is magic.

and one scientist figures out how to profit from that magic.

He is a doctor named Sabin von Sashaki.

In 1906, he studied under the Curies in Paris, so he knows better than most that radium is dangerous.

Still, in 1913, back in the States, von Sashaki figures out how to turn radium into a product.

He develops a luminous paint, radium powder mixed with zinc sulfide, glue, and water.

He calls it...

undark von sashaki founds the radium luminous material corporation to manufacture it now the company later reorganizes as the united states radium corporation or usrc and here's the kicker by 1917 von sashaki himself is so heavily contaminated that his presence causes false readings in the lab

He dies years later in 1928.

He's 45 years old, one of his own products victims.

Still, they continue to manufacture Undark.

And by 1917, the demand for glow-in-the-dark watches is so high, USRC opens a new factory in Orange, New Jersey.