Radium

Raleigh is one of the world's oldest and best known bike brands. Established in 1887 when three men, Woodhead, Angois and Ellis, started making bicycles at a small workshop on Raleigh Street in Nottingham. 

A five storey factory in Triumph Road (where the University of Nottingham Jubilee Campus site now stands) was taken over, and production rose to 60 bicycles a week and the workforce shot up to 200.

The company is renowned for iconic bikes such as the Burner, Grifter and Chopper, as well as cutting-edge bikes like TI-Raleigh Tour-de-France-winning 753 steel frames.

Bike design and wheel building still happens at Head office in Eastwood.

Marie Curie and her husband Pierre discovered the element while experimenting with the mineral called pitchblende in 1898. The samples glowed with a faint blue light in the dark, caused by the intense radioactivity exciting the surrounding air.

Before the dangers of radiation were understood, radium was called the wonder metal because it gave off heat and light.