Marie Curie is one of the most famous scientists who ever lived.
A brilliant physicist, she was the first woman to win a Nobel Prize,
and the only woman to win Nobel Prizes in two different fields—physics and chemistry.
Marie was born Maria Sklodowska on November 7, 1867, in Warsaw, Poland.
Education was very important in her family, and little Manya, as her parents called her, had an amazing memory.
Her father was a math and physics teacher who often showed scientific equipment to his children and read classics out loud to them.
Manya worked hard at school and graduated early, around the age of 16.
Manya and her sister, Bronya, wanted to continue their studies, but back then, women were not admitted to universities in Poland.
For awhile they participated in a "floating university,"
a secret organization that met in different locations each night to provide education and discuss politics.
Eventually Manya and Bronya decided to go to Sorbonne University in Paris, France.
There was one problem—they were quite poor.
So the sisters made a plan. Bronya went to Paris first, to study medicine, while Manya stayed in Poland to work and help pay for Bronya's education.
Later Bronya could use her earnings to help pay for Manya's education.
Manya worked as a tutor and governess, reading about physics and chemistry in her spare time.
Six years after Bronya left for Paris, she finally sent good news.
Bronya was a doctor now and could help pay for Manya's education.
In November 1891 Manya registered at the Sorbonne using "Marie," the French version of her name. Marie's time there was not easy.
She was always busy with her studies, and she hardly slept.
Sometimes she even forgot to eat! But Marie's hard work paid off.
After three years she earned a master's degree in physics and graduated first in her class.
The following year she earned another degree—this time, in mathematics.
In 1894 Marie was working on a research project and needed a laboratory to conduct scientific tests.
A friend told her about Pierre Curie, a young physicist who had a large laboratory to share.
Smart, intense, and passionate about physics, he was a perfect match for Marie.
They were married in July 1895. Pierre was working on his doctorate in physics and taught part-time, so the couple did not have much money.
For their honeymoon they bought two bicycles and then rode around the village where they'd gotten married!
Marie knew she wanted to earn a doctorate degree.
Until then no woman in France had ever earned a doctorate.
First Marie needed to decide upon a research topic for her degree.
She eventually decided to continue the work of a French scientist named Henri Becquerel.
A physicist, Becquerel had found that rocks containing uranium give off light, or rays.
Marie was interested in this unusual phenomenon, and she wanted to learn more about it.
Marie's experiments led her to the idea that this phenomenon comes from changes in the atoms that make up the rocks.
Her discovery was a new idea—until then scientists had believed that atoms could not change their form. Marie called the phenomenon "radioactivity."
Pierre eventually became immersed in her research too.
They investigated whether other matter had radioactivity.
In the course of their work, the couple discovered two new elements:
polonium, which Marie named after her beloved Poland, and radium, named after the Latin word for rays.
The scientists worked hard, and often in poor conditions, as their laboratory was not properly insulated.
They frequently felt sick and tired. The Curies did not know that the radioactive rays were actually very bad for their health.
Exposure to radioactive materials can cause many illnesses.
In 1903 Marie published her discoveries on radioactivity with great success.
She also learned that she and Pierre were being given one of the highest awards in scienceㅡthe Nobel Prize for Physics.
They shared this prize with Henri Becquerel.
On April 19, 1906, the Curies' partnership ended tragically.
While crossing the street, Pierre was run over by a horse-drawn carriage, and died instantly.
Marie was devastated, but she believed she had to carry on with her work.
She started teaching at the Sorbonne, becoming the university's first female professor.
And she began researching ways to use radium to benefit others.
During World War I Marie focused on expanding the use of x-ray machines to diagnose medical conditions.
She trained nurses to use them, and with the help of the French government, she also created "little Curies."
These were portable x-ray machines that could be used to examine wounded soldiers immediately, on the battlefield.
After the war ended, Marie's health worsened.
Exposure to radioactive materials was increasingly damaging her health, but she kept working.
She even received another Nobel Prize, this time for chemistry, becoming the first person—and only woman—to receive two Nobel Prizes.
Her health never improved, and Marie died in 1934 at the age of 66.
Marie Curie's discoveries helped to create many of today's technologies,
such as the use of radioactivity to treat cancer, make electricity, and produce heat.
Her work has greatly influenced the way we live, and it paved the way for other scientists to make other discoveries.