Thomas Midgley Jr.

Thomas Midgley Jr. was born May 18, 1889, an American mechanical and chemical engineer who earned more than 100 patents over his career. He developed tetraethyl lead for gasoline and the first chlorofluorocarbons, branded as Freon, both hailed as breakthroughs in their time. Midgley knew tetraethyl lead was acutely toxic during its development but publicly insisted leaded gasoline posed no health hazard to users. Both products were eventually banned for their devastating effects on human health and the environment, though the damage from CFCs wasn't understood until decades after his death. In 1940 he contracted polio and became disabled; four years later, on November 2, 1944, he was found strangled by a device he'd invented to help himself out of bed - a death the coroner ruled a suicide.