DeadlyCurious
Menu
A place

Ottawa

2 stories from this place.

The Coroner’s Report July 25, 2026 · United States Radium Corporation, Orange, New Jersey

The Radium Girls, the Dial Painters Poisoned by Their Own Employers in the 1920s

From 1917, young women painting luminous watch dials were taught to point their brushes with their lips, swallowing radium with every stroke. As their jaws crumbled and their bones fractured, the companies denied everything. Grace Fryer's 1927-28 lawsuit against US Radium became a landmark of workers' rights.

Read the story →
The Footnote June 24, 2026 · Canadian Museum of History, Gatineau, Quebec

The Telegraph Key That Vince Coleman Used to Stop a Train Is in the Canadian Museum of History

At 8:43 AM on 6 December 1917, Halifax telegraph dispatcher [Vince Coleman](/articles/halifax-explosion-1917) stayed at his post to warn an inbound passenger train that the burning munitions ship in the harbour was about to explode. The explosion killed him about a minute later. The brass-and-wood telegraph key he typed his last message on now lives in a glass case in Gatineau, Quebec.

Read the story →