Marie Curie was born on November 7, 1867 in Warsaw, Poland and was born Marie Sklodowska. She is best known for discovering radium and polonium. Marie Curie moved to Paris, France in 1891 because she was prohibited from higher education. She married Pierre Curie in 1895 and they worked on radiation experiments. (Marie Curie coined the word “radioactivity”) In 1898, Marie and Pierre Curie made the discovery they were best known for, polonium and radium. In 1903, they got the Nobel Prize for physics along with Henri Becquerel. In 1906, just 3 years later, Pierre Curie was killed. Marie Curie took over his job as a professor at the Sorbonne. She got a second Nobel Prize for chemistry in 1911 for her work on radium. At her time, Marie Curie was one of the most celebrated scientists, despite most scientists at that time being men. She died on July 4, 1934 of leukemia. Most people think her exposure to radioactive materials contributed to her death.
Facts:
- She was the first person to win 2 Nobel Prizes.
- She had 2 daughters. One of them won a Nobel Prize for chemistry in 1935.
- Curium is named after Marie Curie and the Curie family.
