Maria Salomea Skłodowska-Curie was born on November 7th 1867 in Warsaw, Poland. As a child she excelled in school but faced many obstacles with her education because of her gender and financial status. Later in life she moved to Paris, where she studied at a university to obtain degrees in both Mathematics and Physics. She shared a laboratory with Pierre Curie, whom she later married; the two of them also conducted research/experiments together.

Henri Bequerel discovered in 1896 that Uranium emitted radiation that interfered with photographic film, the Curie’s built their work off this finding, showing that the strength of the radiation from Thorium depended on the quantity of the element, not any physical or chemical changes that it may have undergone. Using this finding Marie Curie proved that atoms were not indivisible and in fact could be split apart.

They later discovered, through a thoughtful examination of the ore Pitchblende; that two more elements, in addition to the already discovered Uranium, contributed to the total radioactivity (a term created by the Curies.) The two elements they discovered were Polonium (named after Marie’s home country), and Radium (which was the Latin word for ray. 

Following the discovery, Marie and Pierre processed a few tons of Pitchblende to derive a 10th of a gram of Radium Chloride salt(RaCl2), soon after, only Pierre and Henri were nominated for the Nobel prize for physics, with Pierre’s support, however, Both the  Curies and Bequerel won the award. This marked the date for the first woman to become a Nobel Laureate. 

After the unfortunate passing of her husband Pierre, Marie was awarded the Nobel Prize in Chemistry for her previous findings of Radium(number 88 on the periodic table) and Polonium (#84). She later used her research for medical purposes, opening mobile radiation units, and investigating the effect of radiation on tumors. Her work on radiotherapy even helped treat cancer. She unfortunately died in 1934 as a consequence of her exposure to radiation, which developed a condition called aplastic pernicious anemia.