The History of Uranium — They Called It Worthless Until It Ended the World

Subscribe to ‪@VEINMaterial‬ 🧱 This video traces the full history of uranium, from a discarded waste rock in Bohemian silver mines to the element that unleashed the atomic bomb and reshaped the modern world. It follows uranium's strange journey through science and society, showing how something once thrown away as garbage or ground into decorative glass ended up killing miners, scientists, and factory workers long before anyone understood why. The story moves from Joachimsthal's silver mines to Marie Curie's Paris laboratory, from the Radium Girls' factory benches to the Manhattan Project and the bombing of Hiroshima and Nagasaki, ending with the Cold War arms race that followed. What's covered in this video: How silver miners in Joachimsthal cursed and discarded a heavy grey rock called pitchblende, and how the town's coins gave us the word dollar. The mysterious mountain sickness that killed miners in Joachimsthal and Schneeberg centuries before anyone understood radiation. Martin Heinrich Klaproth's 1789 discovery and naming of uranium after the planet Uranus. The rise of uranium glass, popularized by Bohemian glassmaker Franz Xaver Riedel and known today as Vaseline glass, plus its use in ceramic glazes. Marie and Pierre Curie's work in a Paris shed discovering polonium and radium, and how radiation silently poisoned them, including Marie Curie's death and her still-radioactive papers. The tragic story of the Radium Girls, including Grace Fryer, who painted watch dials with radium paint and fought for justice after developing radium jaw and other illnesses. The 1938 discovery of nuclear fission in Berlin by Otto Hahn and Fritz Strassmann, explained by Lise Meitner and Otto Frisch. The race for uranium ore from the Shinkolobwe mine in the Belgian Congo, Edgar Sengier's secret shipment to Staten Island, and the launch of the Manhattan Project under General Leslie Groves and Robert Oppenheimer. The Trinity test in New Mexico and the atomic bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki in August 1945. The Cold War nuclear arms race, mutual assured destruction, the spread of nuclear weapons to multiple nations, and the 1968 nonproliferation treaty. Watch next: The Sweetener That Poisoned the World | The History of Lead    • The Sweetener That Poisoned the World | Th...   The History of Concrete — The Paste That Built the World    • The History of Concrete — The Paste That B...   The History of Aluminum — The Metal Worth More Than Gold:    • The History of Aluminum — The Metal Worth ...   Mentioned in this video: Uranium, Pitchblende, Joachimsthal, Schneeberg, Bohemia, Martin Heinrich Klaproth, Franz Xaver Riedel, Vaseline glass, Marie Curie, Pierre Curie, Henri Becquerel, Polonium, Radium, Radium Girls, Grace Fryer, Otto Hahn, Fritz Strassmann, Lise Meitner, Otto Frisch, Nuclear Fission, Shinkolobwe mine, Belgian Congo, Edgar Sengier, Staten Island, Manhattan Project, General Leslie Groves, Robert Oppenheimer, Trinity test, New Mexico, Hiroshima, Nagasaki, Plutonium, Cold War, Soviet Union, Mutual Assured Destruction, Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty