Short Stuff: Scheele's Green

This episode dives into the fascinating and dark history of Scheele's Green, a brilliantly vibrant pigment that took the Victorian world by storm in the 1800s—but came with a deadly secret. Josh and Chuck explore how German-Swedish chemist Karl Wilhelm Scheele accidentally created this stunning shade by mixing arsenic compounds, and why people eagerly used it everywhere from wallpaper and clothing to children's toys and beauty products, despite knowing it was toxic. They reveal the horrifying consequences of this obsession, including the tragic story of a young factory worker and the eventual public outcry that led to one of the first major regulatory safety laws, plus the intriguing theory that Napoleon himself may have been poisoned by arsenic-laden green wallpaper in his exile.