To offset the ridiculous cover above, we thought we’d share something a bit more traditionally pulp, so here you see the front of Jerôme Caval’s 1964 thriller Le lama de Lima, which means, well, exactly what it looks like it means. The book is volume 30 of the Espionnage Service-Secret collection from the Parisian publisher S.E.G., and the brilliant art is uncredited.
1937—Carothers Patents Nylon
Wallace H. Carothers, an American chemist, inventor and the leader of organic chemistry at DuPont Corporation, receives a patent for a silk substitute fabric called nylon. Carothers was a depressive who for years carried a cyanide capsule on a watch chain in case he wanted to commit suicide, but his genius helped produce other polymers such as neoprene and polyester. He eventually did take cyanide—not in pill form, but dissolved in lemon juice—resulting in his death in late 1937.