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Growing up
Her parents were both teachers. Her dad taught math and physics and her mom was headmistress at a girl's school. As Marie grew older her family came upon tough times. Poland was under the control of Russia at the time. Her father lost his job because he was in favor of Polish rule. -
Birth
Marie Curie was born in Warsaw, Poland -
School in France
Marie moved to France and entered the Sorbonne. During the six years Marie had read a lot of books on math and physics. She knew she wanted to become a scientist. -
Starting a new familiy
Marie met Pierre Curie. Like Marie, he was a scientist and the two of them fell in love. They married a year later and soon had their first child, a daughter named Irene. -
Scientific achievements
Marie and her husband spent many hours in the science lab investigating pitchblende and the new element. They eventually figured out that there were two new elements in pitchblende. They had discovered two new elements for the periodic table! Marie named one of the elements polonium after her homeland Poland. She named the other radium, because it gave off such strong rays. The Curies came up with the term "radioactivity" to describe elements that emitted strong rays. -
Nobel prizes (1)
the Nobel Prize in Physics was awarded to Marie and Pierre Curie as well as Henri Becquerel for their work in radiation. Marie became the first woman to be awarded the prize. -
Nobel prizes (2)
Marie won the Nobel Prize in Chemistry for discovering the two elements, polonium and radium. She was the first person to be awarded two Nobel Prizes. Marie became very famous. Scientists came from around the world to study radioactivity with Marie. -
World war I
When World War I started Marie learned that doctors could use X-rays to help determine what was wrong with an injured soldier. However, there weren't enough X-ray machines for every hospital to have one. She came up with the idea that the X-ray machines could move from hospital to hospital in a truck. Marie even helped to train people to run the machines. The trucks became known as petites Curies, meaning "little Curies" and are thought to have helped over 1 million soldiers during the war. -
Death
She died from overexposure to radiation, both from her experiments and from her work with X-ray machines. Today there are lots of safety measures to keep scientists from getting overexposed to the rays.