Maria Sklodowska Curie

Marie Curie was born Maria Sklodowski in

Warsaw, Poland in 1867. She was the
youngest of five children.

Her parents worked as teachers and they

brought her up to love learning. Her mother
died in 1877. Manya, as they called her, and
her sisters had to get jobs.
 Manya became a tutor for a family. She
enjoyed her time there and could send
money to her father and her sister, Bronya,
who was studying medicine in Paris.
When her sister got married, she invited
Manya to live with them and study at the
Sorbonne. It was then that she changed her
name to Marie.
Marie studied Physics and Maths and got her
Master's degree in both fields. When she
graduated from university, she started research
into magnetism.
It was at time she met Pierre Curie, a young
scientist. They fell in love immediately and got
married. Marie moved to his house and they
both started examining uranium and other
elements to find out if these substances were
radioactive.
Maria and Pierre had two daughters: Irene
(1897) and Eva (1904)
 It took them four years to isolate the
radioactive source which she named
radium. For this, they won a Nobel Prize
in Physics in 1903.
In 1906, her husband died in an accident
and Marie got the position they had
offered him at the Sorbonne.

In 1911, she got a Nobel Prize in Chemistry.

 During World War I, Marie designed
the first mobile X-Ray machine and
travelled with it along the front lines.

Marie died in July 1934 in Paris. She died of

radiation poisoning. She worked hard and
proved that if a person keeps to their goals,
they will succeed. For her, success came with
the two Nobel Prizes she received and the
fact that she was the first woman to ever get
one.
 Interesting facts about Marie
Skłodowska Curie

 Maria was one of the first women actively

involved in rock climbing in the Tatras. She was
the first woman to wear trousers to the
mountains.
 She loved sports and swimming, and loved
riding a bike.
 Maria is the first woman to receive a driver's
license.
  Until the end of her life, the scientist
calculated in Polish. And she almost always
published the results of her work
simultaneously in French and Polish.
 During World War I, Maria provided
financial support to the French Armed Forces
and knitted socks for soldiers.

In the 90s of the 20th century, the

family of the Nobel Prize laureate
decided to donate her diaries and
notes to the Paris National Library, but
it turned out that the level of
radioactivity was so high that the
papers had to be decontaminated for
two years.
 Albert Einstein said about Marie Curie-
Skłodowska that she was the only person not
spoiled by fame

Craters on the Moon and Mars are named

after Marie Curie-Skłodowska.