Manhattan Project Coca Cola

Not a post about an item, but a story about Coca Cola during WWII. Today as I read through the book The Manhattan Project - obviously one of man's grerates achievements - half way through, Coke finds its way in to the story. Background -- scientists were working with plutonium and uranium at the University of Chicago (one of several main lab sites). Here' the quick story as told by a 22 year old female physicist in December 1943. "There were some unexpected events. This one concerned the Coca-Cola machine. It was a style of machine that dropped a paper cup, which was then filled with carbonated water and Coca-Cola syrup. The man who came to service the machine at our lunch time forgot to bring his hose for filling the syrup reservoir. He walked into the neighboring laboratory where wet chemistry was being performed and borrowed a runner hose from an aspirator, filled the reservoir with the syrup, returned the hose and left. Some time after lunch a technician was carrying an alpha counter and noticed that the meter went off the scale as he passed the Coke machine. By the next day, the Coke machine was replaced with one that dispensed bottles rather than liquids. We never did know how many, if any, employees drank the radioactive Coca-Cola."
-- Amazing to think about life in those days. Even as Americans were changing the world, they drank Coca-Cola. Happy holidays all!