Radium seventh of a gram of radium. One kilogram of the Earth's crust contains about 900 picograms of radium, and one liter of sea water contains about 89 femtograms of radium. Radium was discovered by Marie Sklodowska-Curie and her husband Pierre Curie on 21 December 1898, in a uraninite (pitchblende) sample. While studying the mineral earlier, the Curies removed uranium from it and found that the remaining material was still radioactive. They separated out an element similar to bismuth from pitchblende in July 1898, that turned out to be polonium. They then separated out a radioactive mixture consisting mostly of two
Radium Girls Radium Girls The Radium Girls were female factory workers who contracted radiation poisoning from painting watch dials with self-luminous paint. Painting was done by women at three different sites in the United States, and the term now applies to the women working at the facilities: the first, a United States Radium factory in Orange, New Jersey, beginning around 1917; the facility at Ottawa, Illinois, beginning in the early 1920s; and a third facility in Waterbury, Connecticut. The women in each facility had been told the paint was harmless, and subsequently ingested deadly amounts of radium after being instructed to "point"