Marie Curie (1867–1934) was a scientist at a time when it was unusual for a woman to be a scientist at all. She is remembered today for her work with her husband Pierre Curie on radioactivity. They discovered two radioactive elements: radium and polonium. She also played an important part in developing the use of X-rays, especially during World War I. She was the first woman to win a Nobel prize. She was also the only woman to have won a Nobel Prize in two different fields: physics and chemistry.

Early life

Marie Curie was born Maria Sklodowska on 7th November 1867, in Warsaw, Poland. She was the youngest of five children. Her parents were teachers and they made sure both their sons and daughters were taught well. When Maria was just 11 years old, her mother died.

Maria continued to do well at school, but as she grew up she faced the problem of how to go to university. Poland was ruled by Russia at the time, and the Russians made it a rule that the University of Warsaw should not accept women.

Marie studied physics, chemistry and mathematics at the Sorbonne. Two years later she gained her degree with the highest marks in her class.

​​​​​​​While in Paris, Marie met Pierre Curie, a fellow scientist. He was an expert in magnetism and an inventor of scientific instruments. They were married in 1895, and their first child Irène was born in 1897. Another daughter, Ève, was born in 1904.

Radioactivity

Marie decided to continue the work of French scientist Henri Becquerel (1852–1908). He had been researching X-rays, discovered in 1895 by the German physicist Wilhelm Röntgen (1845–1923). X-rays are like light, but have much shorter wavelengths and can pass through some solids. Becquerel found that chemical compounds that contained the element uranium also gave out mysterious new types of rays, different from X-rays. These rays left a foggy mark on a photographic plate.

Marie now studied a material called pitchblende, an ore of uranium (the rock in which uranium occurs naturally). The pitchblende gave off rays that were more powerful than expected. Marie now suspected that the ore contained other substances more strongly radioactive even than uranium.

In 1898, Pierre joined Marie to help her with her research. Together they spent a great deal of time trying to extract minute traces of other substances from a tonne of pitchblende.

Nobel Prize

Marie and Pierre were now famous. They were jointly awarded the 1903 Nobel prize for Physics, along with Henri Becquerel. Pierre was also given a professorship at the Sorbonne. Marie was made head of research there.

But tragedy struck in 1906, when Pierre was killed. He was knocked down in the street by horses pulling a heavy wagon. Marie was desperately unhappy, but she remembered that Pierre had always told her that, if anything were to happen to him, she should continue her work.

Radium Institute

World War I broke out in 1914. Marie and her daughter Irène did important work turning trucks into mobile X-ray units, so that doctors could view the soldiers’ injuries better.

After the war, Marie became Director of the new Radium Institute in Paris. Irène worked there too. But Marie's health became poor, probably caused by too much exposure to radioactivity, which damages body cells. She was diagnosed with the disease leukaemia.

Marie Curie died in 1934 and was buried beside her husband. In 1995, their remains were moved to the Panthéon, a memorial in Paris to France’s greatest men and women.