This is a Halloween horror talk about indescribable pain, suffering, and death experienced by real people resulting from early radiation research and entrepreneurship. Discussion of underlying science topics will be sacrificed to dwell on astonishing and gruesome graphic imagery. I will tell three rambling true stories of famous or forgotten characters that recklessly exposed themselves or others to remarkably toxic sources of radiation. A couple of those characters made themselves fantastically rich and died peacefully, another died penniless but humanely and with honor, one was a corporation that is now a superfund site, and the remaining characters eventually met with such horrifying ends that they helped to forever change United States occupation and consumer safety regulations, for the most part.