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The Man Who Accidentally Killed The Most People In History

Veritasium · 43.5M views · 2022-04-22 · 24:57

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Overview

Veritasium tells the story of Thomas Midgley Jr., who introduced leaded gasoline and CFCs, and covers the science behind lead exposure and ozone damage. It also touches on isotope geochemistry used to uncover the history.

On Hacker News

HN commenters recommend it whenever leaded fuel, toxic chemicals or corporate profit motives come up, praising its storytelling and accessible science.

Recommended by 6 HN people across 6 months · HN mentions 2022–2026

Topics

ChemistryEnvironment, agriculture & food systemsWorld history
Search by tags
thomas midgleytetraethylleadcfcsenvironmental disasterlead poisoning

What people said

belltaco · 2023-10 · Strong recommendation

If you want a fascinating story telling video with a lot of sciency stuff for the relative layman, here's an excellent one by Veritasium on how it happened. "The Man Who Accidentally Killed The Most People In History" [VIDEO]

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amiga386 · 2025-12 · Recommendation

Veritasium did a great video on Midgley: [VIDEO] And therein they give the reason why ethanol was passed over: a lot of it is required to be effective (~10% of the fuel mixture), seriously dampening the profit margin of fuel sales! It works, but tetraethyl lead is so much cheaper

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thret · 2023-12 · Recommendation

[VIDEO] This youtube channel does a good job of explaining his inventions and just how bad for society they were.

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Sources

Video by Veritasium, played through YouTube.

Data and selection notes

HN summaries and labels may contain AI errors. HN dates refer to discussions, not video publication.

HN Library: HackerTube export (2026-10-31) and open-index/hacker-news. Upstream summaries and classifications may contain AI errors.

Views, duration and playback status refresh separately from the published catalog. When an update fails, existing data remains visible.

Selection checks
  • SaaS & AI candidates: Topic keywords do not match
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Rule matches identify candidates. They do not guarantee video quality or financial results.

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