Marei Curie

Marie Curie was the first woman to win a Nobel Prize. She was renowned for her work with radioactivity, and it was that work that would eventually end her life.

She was born Maria Sklodowska in Warsaw, Poland on November 7, 1867. She was the fifth and last child of piano player and teacher Bronsilawa Boguska and mathematics and physics professor, Wladyslaw Sklodowski. Her childhood nickname was Manya. Her father was a freethinker and her mother was a Catholic.

Her family valued education, and so she began her education early. She possessed a remarkable memory. She graduated from secondary school when she was sixteen, receiving a gold medal for her work. Unfortunately her father made some bad investments and she had to go to work at a young age as a teacher, postponing the continuance of her own education. At the age of 18 she became a governess, and put her sister, Bronia, through school with the agreement that Bronia would return the favor- and she did.

In 1891 at the age of 24, Sklodowska went to Paris to study mathematics, physics and chemistry at the Sorbonne. She studied fervently, and subsisted almost entirely on bread, butter and tea. During her years there she changed the spelling of her name to the French version, Marie.

She met Pierre Curie in Paris while she studied there, and they soon married in a Civil ceremony. Marie had left the Catholic church when she was 20 and Pierre was not a member of any religion, either.

Marie and Pierre Curie devoted themselves to the study of radioactivity, and were among the first to work with radium and polonium. It was Marie Curie who