What year did radiation poisoning start?

Answer 1

The first documented cases that became known by the public were in 1917 involving the Radium Girls: low paid women that painted a luminescent radium/zinc based paint on clock and instrument dials so they could be read at night.

However cases among scientists go back to as early as 1897 when Marie Curie began her work separating radioactive elements from uranium ore.

Note: early life about 3 billion years ago was sometimes exposed to high levels of radiation when naturally occurring uranium fission reactors spontaneously formed in some locations that could have also caused radiation poisoning. However the concentration of uranium-235 in natural uranium soon dropped too low for such reactors to form after that.

Answer 2

Radiation poisoning has likely existed since humans began working with radioactive materials. However, significant cases were documented after the discovery of radioactivity in the late 19th and early 20th centuries, with instances like the radium dial painters in the early 1900s and the atomic bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki in 1945 bringing greater attention to its effects.