Thomas Midgely Jr
If I were one to post to TIL on reddit, I would have posted about this yesterday:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IV3dnLzthDA "The Man Who Accidentally Killed The Most People In History\[SIC\]"
It's why I went looking for the source of a quote.
The video was about Thomas Midgely Jr, whom Wikipedia summarizes well:
│ Thomas Midgley Jr. (May 18, 1889 -- November 2, 1944) was an American
│ mechanical and chemical engineer. He played a major role in developing leaded
│ gasoline (tetraethyl lead) and some of the first chlorofluorocarbons (CFCs),
│ better known in the United States by the brand name Freon; both products were
│ later banned from common use due to their harmful impact on human health and
│ the environment. He was granted more than 100 patents over the course of his
│ career.[2] He contracted polio in 1940. In 1944 he was found strangled by a
│ device he devised to allow him to get out of bed unassisted at his home in
│ Worthington, Ohio. At the time, it was declared a suicide. Today, many report
│ he was accidentally killed by his own invention.
Leaded Gasoline
• decreased average intelligence
• boosted crime rates
Clair Patterson - experiments for determining the age of the earth required measuring lead in samples, but samples were contaminated due to gasoline use.
Kettering - self-starting car (no hand crank)
• engine knock - combustion from compression instead of spark
Thomas Midgely, Jr., hired by Kettering, added Lead to gasoline because Ethanol was too expensive.
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