Born: 7 November 1867
Died: 4 July 1934
Nationality: Poland
Born as Maria Sklodowska on November in Warsaw, Poland, Marie Curie became the first woman to win a Nobel Prize and the only woman to win the award in two different fields (physics and chemistry). Curie worked as a tutor and a governess. She used her spare time to study, reading about physics, chemistry and math. In 1891, Curie finally made her way to Paris where she enrolled at the Sorbonne in Paris. With little money, Curie survived on buttered bread and tea and her health sometimes suffered because of her poor diet.
Curie completed her master's degree in physics in 1893 and earned another degree in mathematics the following year. Around this time, she received a commission to do a study on different types of steel and their magnetic properties. Curie needed a lab to work in, and a colleague introduced her to French physicist Pierre Curie. A romance developed between the brilliant pair, and they became a scientific dynamic duo. The pair married on July 26, 1895.
Curie's efforts, with her husband Pierre Curie, led to the discovery of polonium and radium and, after Pierre's Died, the further development of X-rays. She died on July 4, 1934.
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