Chemical Elements History and Information Radium

About the chemical element Radium, its symbol, atomic number and weight, who discovered it and when.

The Atomic Elements and Their Uses

(Element) (Symbol) (Atomic number) (Atomic weight)

Radium Ra 88 226.0254

Discovered by Pierre Curie of France and Marie Curie of Poland and their assistant, G. Bemont of France, in 1898. The idea of radioactive poisoning was brought to public attention by the disastrous effects of radium on a number of women who had worked in a factory making luminous dials during W. W. I. They had been in the habit of wetting the points of their brushes on their lips and had thus accumulated large amounts of radium internally. Twenty-four of these women died of cancer within 15 years after the war.