A scientist discovers a burn mark across his stomach caused by a forgotten vial of radium he had been carrying in his pocket.

Fourteen-year-old Katherine Schaub begins her new job at a watch-dial factory where workers paint numbers using luminescent, radium-based paint.

Workers are taught to lip-point their brushes by placing them in their mouths to form a fine tip for precise dial painting.

Mollie Maggia dies after radium destroys her jaw and she hemorrhages blood from her throat; her official cause of death is syphilis.

Radium Dial opens a factory in Ottawa, Illinois, hiring young women as dial-painters and teaching them the same lip-pointing technique.

Katherine Schaub goes to the Department of Health to file a report identifying lip-pointing as the cause of several dial-painters' deaths.

Katherine Wiley of the Consumers League launches a formal investigation into the dial-painters' illnesses after being contacted by health officer Lenore Young.

Dr. Martland conducts an autopsy on USRC's chief chemist and measures radiation inside a human body for the first time.

Martland tests Grace Fryer, Katherine Schaub, and Quinta Maggia for radium and confirms dangerously high levels in all of them.

Lawyer Raymond Berry takes on Grace Fryer's case, arguing the statute of limitations should not start until the women received their official diagnoses.

Grace's headline-making case encourages Edna Hussman, Quinta Maggia, and Albina Maggia to file their own suits against USRC with Berry.

The five New Jersey women settle with USRC, each receiving a lump-sum payment, an annual pension, and coverage of medical expenses.

Tom Donohue carries his wife Catherine to the Illinois Industrial Commission hearing, where she testifies about lip-pointing and Radium Dial's deceptions.

Judge Marvel rules Radium Dial guilty and orders Catherine Donohue to receive the maximum payout allowed under the law.

The Supreme Court refuses to hear Radium Dial's final appeal, officially confirming Catherine Donohue's victory and setting a precedent for worker protections.

Young women at a New Jersey watch-dial factory are hired to paint luminescent numbers using radium-based paint and taught a technique that puts radium directly into their bodies. As mysterious deaths mount, a former dial-painter takes her concerns to the Department of Health, triggering a chain of investigations that eventually confirm radium as the cause. A young lawyer named Raymond Berry devises a bold legal argument to overcome the statute of limitations and helps several women file suit against the United States Radium Corporation. After a grueling court battle, the five New Jersey women reach a landmark settlement that gives them financial security in their final years. Meanwhile in Ottawa, Illinois, Catherine Donohue leads a parallel legal fight against Radium Dial that winds all the way to the Supreme Court. Together the cases establish lasting protections for American workers and permanently change how radioactive materials are handled.

The core fight of the Radium Girls — from dial painting to legal victory.

Radium dust coats the dial-painters' skin and clothes, causing them to glow in the dark; Katherine Schaub's blood shows unexplained changes at a doctor's visit.

Company founder Sabin von Sochocky is ousted from USRC in a corporate takeover engineered by treasurer Arthur Roeder.

Dr. Theodore Blum diagnoses dial-painter Hazel Vincent with poisoning by a radioactive substance, the first such official diagnosis recorded.

USRC president Roeder recruits Harvard physiologist Dr. Cecil Drinker to conduct a formal internal investigation into the factory workers' declining health.

The Drinker report concludes radium behaves like calcium and deposits in bones, but Roeder issues a distorted summary rather than publishing the full findings.

After Drinker's true conclusions become known, USRC hires Dr. Frederick Flinn, presented as an industrial hygiene expert, to produce favorable reports on the dial-painters.

Frederick Hoffman presents a paper at the American Medical Association publicly connecting radium exposure to the dial-painters' sicknesses for the first time.

Sarah Maillefer dies from radium poisoning and Dr. Martland goes to the media that same day to announce his suspicions publicly.

USRC pays settlements to families who had filed earlier compensation suits, likely because company lawyers knew the cases would be lost in court.

Ottawa dial-painter Ella Cruse dies within days of falling suddenly ill; her cause of death is officially recorded as streptococcic poisoning.

Mollie Maggia's body is exhumed to gather court evidence and her coffin is found to glow with radium; radium is confirmed throughout her bones.

Peg Looney dies at the Radium Dial company hospital; the family's doctor arrives at the agreed hour to find the company has already completed her autopsy.

Katherine Schaub dies from a leg sarcoma at age 30, and Grace Fryer dies months later with cause of death listed as radium sarcoma.

The Ottawa dial-painters hire Leonard Grossman, a Chicago lawyer known for taking impossible cases on behalf of the poor and working class.

Safety standards for handling radioactive materials are introduced in wartime industries as a direct result of the dial-painters' legal battles and public legacy.

Behind the main legal battles were countless doctors, executives, and corporate maneuvers whose actions shaped the dial-painters' fate at every turn. Company leaders suppressed damning research, hired fraudulent experts, and issued distorted reports to protect their profits while workers fell ill and died. Individual women like Hazel Vincent, Sarah Maillefer, Ella Cruse, and Peg Looney suffered and died while corporations denied responsibility and falsified their causes of death. A key breakthrough came when Dr. Martland's autopsy work and Frederick Hoffman's public paper forced the scientific community to confront radium's true dangers. The New Jersey settlement brought relief to five women, but the story was far from over as fresh victims suffered in Ottawa and a new legal campaign had to be built from scratch. The dial-painters' combined victories eventually shaped wartime safety standards and left a permanent mark on American labor law.

The scientists, deaths, and cover-ups that shaped the dial-painters' long road to justice.

Factory founder von Sochocky passes through the studio and privately warns dial-painter Grace Fryer that lip-pointing will make her sick.

Irene Rudolph, suffering the same symptoms as the recently deceased Mollie Maggia, urges a doctor to investigate her former dial-painting workplace.

Helen Quinlan and Irene Rudolph both die from mysterious illnesses within weeks of each other, alarming the surviving dial-painters.

The Drinker investigation alarms researchers by finding workers casually eating lunch at desks coated in radium dust with no protective precautions taken.

Radium necrosis is officially added to the list of compensable workplace diseases under worker's compensation law, offering the women a new legal path.

Dr. Flinn publishes a paper falsely declaring the radium paint safe, directly contradicting what he had written privately to Dr. Drinker.

Raymond Berry investigates Dr. Flinn and discovers he holds no medical license, then reports him to authorities for practicing medicine without one.

Von Sochocky testifies in court that he does not remember warning Grace Fryer about lip-pointing, delivering a devastating betrayal to the women's case.

Berry successfully pressures the court to move the hearing date forward after doctors attest the women may not survive until September.

Radium Dial runs a full-page newspaper ad claiming its workers are perfectly safe just three days after news of the New Jersey settlement breaks.

Quinta Maggia dies suddenly and her autopsy confirms the same rare bone sarcoma seen in previous dial-painter deaths.

Radium Dial fires Catherine Wolfe because the limp caused by her radium poisoning is attracting visible talk around the Ottawa factory.

Chicago doctor Loffler finally diagnoses Catherine Donohue with radium poisoning via x-ray after her husband Tom sought medical help outside Ottawa.

An Illinois court rules Radium Dial not guilty on a legal technicality, forcing the Ottawa women to abandon the case and find new representation.

Too ill to travel, Catherine Donohue testifies from her own bed as the Industrial Commission hearing continues at her bedside the following day.

The path to justice for the radium girls was defined by moments of suppressed truth, unexpected betrayal, and hard-won discovery. Early warnings about lip-pointing were ignored or quietly buried, and when company-hired investigators like Dr. Flinn fabricated test results, the women's cases seemed hopeless — until lawyer Raymond Berry exposed Flinn as having no medical credentials whatsoever. Legal setbacks mounted as statutes of limitations blocked compensation claims and an Illinois court dismissed the Ottawa women's case on a technicality. Betrayals in the courtroom, including von Sochocky's denial that he ever warned Grace Fryer, deepened the women's resolve rather than breaking it. Corporate counter-moves — a false full-page newspaper ad, a worker fired for her visible limp — revealed how far the companies would go to silence their victims. Ultimately, Catherine Donohue's bedside testimony became the turning point that defeated Radium Dial and secured a ruling that would protect workers for generations.

The key revelations, betrayals, and pivotal decisions that determined whether justice would prevail.