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Property loss
On both the paternal and maternal sides, the family had lost their property and fortunes through patriotic involvements in Polish national uprisings aimed at restoring Poland's independence, the most recent had been the January Uprising of 1863 -
Birth
Marie Curie was born in Warsaw, in Congress Poland in the Russian Empire, on 7 November 1867, the fifth and youngest child of well-known teachers Bronisława, née Boguska, and Władysław Skłodowski. -
Boarding school of J. Sikorska
When she was ten years old, Maria began attending the boarding school of J. Sikorska. -
Gymnasium
After boarding school, she attended a gymnasium for girls, from which she graduated on 12 June 1883 with a gold medal. -
The following years
After a collapse, possibly due to depression, she spent the following year in the countryside with relatives of her father, and the next year with her father in Warsaw, where she did some tutoring. -
Invitation from Bronisława
At the beginning of 1890, Bronisława, a Polish physician and social and political activist—invited Maria to join them in Paris. Maria declined because she could not afford the university tuition; it would take her a year and a half longer to gather the necessary funds. -
Practical ScientificTraining
In 1891 she began her practical scientific training in a chemical laboratory at the Museum of Industry and Agriculture at Krakowskie Przedmieście 66, near Warsaw's Old Town. The laboratory was run by her cousin Józef Boguski, who had been an assistant in Saint Petersburg to the Russian chemist Dmitri Mendeleev. -
New Life in Paris
In 1892, she left Poland for France. In Paris, Maria briefly found shelter with her sister and brother-in-law before renting a garret closer to the university, in the Latin Quarter, and proceeding with her studies of physics, chemistry, and mathematics at the University of Paris, where she enrolled in 1892. She subsisted on her meager resources, keeping herself warm during cold winters by wearing all the clothes she had. She focused so hard on her studies that she sometimes forgot to eat. -
Degrees
In 1893, she was awarded a degree in physics and began work in an industrial laboratory of Professor Gabriel Lippmann. Meanwhile, she continued studying at the University of Paris, and with the aid of a fellowship she was able to earn a second degree in 1894. -
Pierre Curie
That same year Pierre Curie entered her life; it was their mutual interest in natural sciences that drew them together. Pierre Curie was an instructor at the School of Physics and Chemistry. They were introduced by the Polish physicist, Professor Józef Wierusz-Kowalski, who had learned that she was looking for a larger laboratory space, something that Pierre had access to. Though Curie did not have a large laboratory, he was able to find some space for Marie where she was able to begin work. -
Marriage
On 26 July 1895 they were married in Sceaux and neither wanted a religious service. -
Curie's Discovery
She used an innovative technique to investigate samples.Fifteen years earlier, her husband had developed a version of the electrometer.Using this electrometer, she discovered that uranium rays caused the air around a sample to conduct electricity.Her first result was the finding that the activity of the uranium compounds depended only on the quantity of uranium present.She hypothesized that the radiation was not the outcome of some interaction of molecules but must come from the atom itself. -
Existence of X-reys
In 1895, Wilhelm Roentgen discovered the existence of X-rays, though the mechanism was not yet understood. In 1896, Henri Becquerel discovered that uranium salts emitted rays that resembled X-rays in their penetrating power. He demonstrated that this radiation did not depend on an external source of energy but seemed to arise spontaneously from uranium itself. Influenced by these two important discoveries, Curie decided to look into uranium rays as a possible field of research for a thesis. -
Irene's Birth
In 1897, her daughter Irène was born. To support her family, Curie began teaching at the École Normale Supérieure. -
Thorium
Marie Curie began a systematic search for additional substances that emit radiation, and by 1898 she discovered that the element thorium was also radioactive. -
Polonium - Radium - Radioactivity
In July 1898, Curie and her husband published a joint paper announcing the existence of an element which they named "polonium", in honour of her native Poland, which would for another twenty years remain partitioned among three empires . On 26 December 1898, the Curies announced the existence of a second element, which they named "radium", from the Latin word for "ray". In the course of their research, they also coined the word "radioactivity". -
Nobel Prize in Physics
In December 1903, the Royal Swedish Academy of Sciences awarded Pierre Curie, Marie Curie, and Henri Becquerel the Nobel Prize in Physics, "in recognition of the extraordinary services they have rendered by their joint researches on the radiation phenomena discovered by Professor Henri Becquerel."Marie Curie was the first woman to be awarded a Nobel Prize. -
Eve's Birth
In December 1904, Curie gave birth to their second daughter, Ève. She hired Polish governesses to teach her daughters her native language, and sent or took them on visits to Poland. -
Pierre's Death
On 19 April 1906, Pierre Curie was killed in a road accident. Walking across the Rue Dauphine in heavy rain, he was struck by a horse-drawn vehicle and fell under its wheels, causing his skull to fracture.Curie was devastated by her husband's death. -
Professor at the University of Paris
On 13 May 1906 the physics department of the University of Paris decided to retain the chair that had been created for her late husband and to offer it to Marie. She accepted it, hoping to create a world-class laboratory as a tribute to her husband Pierre.She was the first woman to become a professor at the University of Paris. -
Radium Institute
Curie's quest to create a new laboratory didn't end with the University of Paris.In her later years, she headed the Radium Institute, a radioactivity laboratory created for her by the Pasteur Institute and the University of Paris.The initiative for creating the Radium Institute had come in 1909 from Pierre Paul.Only then, with the threat of Curie leaving, did the University of Paris relent, and the Curie Pavilion became a joint initiative of the University of Paris. -
Isolating Radium
In 1910 Curie succeeded in isolating radium; she also defined an international standard for radioactive emissions that was eventually named for her and Pierre: the curie. -
Red Cross Radiology Service
She became the director of the Red Cross Radiology Service and set up France's first military radiology centre, operational by late 1914. -
Member of the league of Nations'
In August 1922 Marie Curie became a member of the League of Nations' newly created International Committee on Intellectual Cooperation. She sat on the Committee until 1934 and contributed to League of Nations scientific coordination with other prominent researchers such as Albert Einstein, Hendrik Lorentz, and Henri Bergson. -
Biography of Pierre
In 1923 she wrote a biography of her late husband, titled Pierre Curie. -
Visit Poland and America
In 1925 she visited Poland to participate in a ceremony laying the foundations for Warsaw's Radium Institute. Her second American tour, in 1929, succeeded in equipping the Warsaw Radium Institute with radium; the Institute opened in 1932, with her sister Bronisława its director. These distractions from her scientific labours, and the attendant publicity, caused her much discomfort but provided resources for her work. -
International Atomic Weights Committee
In 1930 she was elected to the International Atomic Weights Committee, on which she served until her death. -
Death
Curie visited Poland for the last time in early 1934. A few months later, on 4 July 1934, she died at the Sancellemoz sanatorium in Passy, Haute-Savoie, from aplastic anemia believed to have been contracted from her long-term exposure to radiation.
