Marie Curie grew up in Warsaw. Already from her childhood on she was eager to gain more knowledge and was interested in the natural sciences.
As in 1891 women were not permitted to study at universities in Poland, with 24 she decided to go and study in Paris. At the Sorbonne she was supposed to study mathematics and physics. Despite the language barriers and as one of 23 women among over 1,800 students, she graduated top of her class in physics and a year later second of her class in math.
Later, during her professorship, she met her husband. With him she and Henri-Antonie Becquerel, received the Nobel Prize in Physics “for the development and pioneering work in the field of spontaneous radioactivity and radiation phenomena”.
At that time she was the first woman to receive a Nobel Prize in history. When her husband died, she took over his professorship at Sorbonne, making her the first woman to ever teach at the university.
During her research, she was able to isolate the element radium and received a Nobel Prize in chemistry for it, making her the first person to receive 2 Nobel Prizes to date.
Marie also passed on her enthusiasm for science to her daughter Irene. Together they researched and developed a mobile X-ray station that was used to treat soldiers in World War I. Marie herself examined soldiers at the front with her invention.
Marie died of leukemia in 1934 as her work with radioactive radiation had damaged her body. A year later, her daughter also received a Nobel Prize, which Marie was unfortunately no longer able to experience. Marie’s second daughter Eve has also made a name for herself as she wrote a biography of her mother, which was published three years after Marie Curie’s death.
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