Every year any number of website, bloggers, etc., put together a list of what they consider to be the most dangerous toys of all time and, speaking honestly, the roll-call is pretty much the same...and legitimate: Lawn Darts, Easy Bake Oven and, of most recent vintage, the hover board.

But there's one toy - and truly a toy in name only - that relegates all the others to the second tier of potential kid-killers and that's the (ready?) Radioactive Atomic Energy Lab Kit with Uranium.

Here's a bit more info from ripleys.com:

"As America entered the age of the atom, it seemed as though there was no problem that wouldn’t be solved without the help of nuclear physics. While atomic gardening was marketed to housewives, this toy was meant for the kids."

And how, exactly, did it work? Here's more from ripley.com:

"The kit really let anyone set up their own nuclear lab at home. The cloud chamber specifically allowed people to observe alpha particles moving 12,000 miles per second. To make things more fun, he suggested kids play a game of hide-and-seek with a gamma-ray source.'

"The kits cost a mere $50, which would be about $400 adjusted to today’s dollars. Despite this steep price for a children’s toy, Gilbert advertised that children could use it to prospect for uranium. At the time, the United States government was offering a $10,000 reward to anyone who identified new sources of fission material.'

"When the kits launched, children were generally overwhelmed by their complexity, and as safety concerns mounted, the kits were quickly removed from store shelves, though an estimated 5,000 made it out into the world."

 

More From 96.5 KVKI