Surely one of last century’s most important women was Marie Curie. Not only was she the first woman ever to win the Nobel Prize, she’s also the only woman ever who received two Nobel Prizes.

Childhood in Poland

Marie Curie was born Marya Salomée Sklodowska on November 7, 1867, in Warsaw.
She was the youngest of five siblings.
1883, Marya graduated at the age of only fifteen.

Studying at the Sorbonne

At this time, in Poland, women were not allowed to go to university.
So in 1891 she enrolled at the Sorbonne in Paris and began studying chemistry, physics and mathematics.
To earn her living she had to work as a tutor in the evenings but nevertheless earned a degree in physis in July 1893 and only one year later in mathematics where she finished second best.

Pierre Curie

Marya’s dream always had been to become a teacher.
But in 1894, a person entered Marya’s life that changed all her plans:
Pierre Curie, an instructor in the School of Physics and Chemistry.
They began working together in 1894 and soon fell in love with each other.
In July 1895 the couple married and two years later Irène Curie was born.

Discovery of Radium and Polonium

Still working as Pierre’s assistant, they both began researching on the radiation that Henri Becquerel accidentally discovered in 1896 when he noticed, that uranium salts hat fully exposed the photographic plates they were wrapped in.
But due to the discovery of x-rays in 1895, nobody really paid attention to Becquerel besides Pierre and Marie Curie.
In July 1898 they announced a new element they named “polonium“ to honor Marie’s home country Poland.
In December they declared “radium� as another new, radioactive element.

Nobel Prizes and Death

In 1903 she won the Nobel Prize in Physics together with her husband and Henry Becquerel.
In 1904, the couple’s second daughter Eve was born.
Only two years later Pierre Curie died in an accident.
In 1911 she was awarded the Nobel Prize in Chemistry.
On July 4, 1934, Marie Curie died of aplestic anemia, a disease that was most certainly caused by her long-time exposure to radiation.
Another element was named after Pierre and Marie Curie, radioactive “curium“.

It took many years for the world to become aware of the danger of radiation – a word coined by Marie Curie who fell prey to her own discovery.