The Curie Institute in Paris, founded by Marie in 1921, is still a major cancer research facility.Eve wrote a biography of her mother's life. Marie had a second daughter named Eve.Her first daughter, Irene, won a Nobel Prize in Chemistry for her work with aluminum and radiation.Marie became good friends with fellow scientist Albert Einstein.Marie's husband Pierre was killed when he was run over by a carriage in Paris in 1906.She was the first woman to hold this position. Marie became the Professor of Physics at the Sorbonne after her husband died.Today there are lots of safety measures to keep scientists from getting overexposed to the rays. She died from overexposure to radiation, both from her experiments and from her work with X-ray machines. The trucks became known as petites Curies, meaning "little Curies" and are thought to have helped over 1 million soldiers during the war. Marie even helped to train people to run the machines. She came up with the idea that the X-ray machines could move from hospital to hospital in a truck. However, there weren't enough X-ray machines for every hospital to have one. When World War I started Marie learned that doctors could use X-rays to help determine what was wrong with an injured soldier. Soon doctors found that radiology could help with curing cancer. Scientists came from around the world to study radioactivity with Marie. She was the first person to be awarded two Nobel Prizes. In 1911 Marie won the Nobel Prize in Chemistry for discovering the two elements, polonium and radium. Marie became the first woman to be awarded the prize. In 1903, the Nobel Prize in Physics was awarded to Marie and Pierre Curie as well as Henri Becquerel for their work in radiation. The Curies came up with the term " radioactivity" to describe elements that emitted strong rays. She named the other radium, because it gave off such strong rays. Marie named one of the elements polonium after her homeland Poland. They had discovered two new elements for the periodic table! They eventually figured out that there were two new elements in pitchblende. Marie and her husband spent many hours in the science lab investigating pitchblende and the new element. She soon realized that there must be a new, undiscovered element in pitchblende. She expected there to be a few rays from the uranium in pitchblende, but instead Marie found a lot of rays. One day Marie was examining a material called pitchblende. Roentgen discovered X-rays and Becquerel had found rays given off by an element called uranium. Marie became fascinated by rays that were recently discovered by scientists Wilhelm Roentgen and Henri Becquerel. They married a year later and soon had their first child, a daughter named Irene. Like Marie, he was a scientist and the two of them fell in love. After three years she earned her degree in Physics. Marie lived the life of a poor college student, but she loved every minute of it. In order to fit in, she changed her name from Manya to Marie. She knew she wanted to become a scientist. During the six years Marie had read a lot of books on math and physics. It took six years, but, after Bronislawa graduated and became a doctor, Marie moved to France and entered the Sorbonne. Marie did not have the money to go there, but agreed to work to help pay for her sister Bronislawa to go to school in France, if she would help Marie after she graduated. However, there was a famous university in Paris, France called the Sorbonne that women could attend. This was a difficult time for the young Marie.Īfter graduating from high school, Marie wanted to attend a university, but this wasn't something that young women did in Poland in the 1800s. Two years later her mother died from tuberculosis. Then, when Marie was ten, her oldest sister Zofia became sick and died from the disease typhus. Her father lost his job because he was in favor of Polish rule. People were not even allowed to read or write anything in the Polish language. Poland was under the control of Russia at the time. She had a sharp memory and worked hard on her studies.Īs Marie grew older her family came upon tough times. She was a very bright child and did well in school. Growing up the child of two teachers, Marie was taught to read and write early. Her dad taught math and physics and her mom was headmistress at a girl's school. Her birth name was Maria Sklodowska, but her family called her Manya. Marie Curie grew up in Warsaw, Poland where she was born on November 7, 1867. Best known for: Her work in radioactivity.
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