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Lise Meitner born on November 7th, 1878. She became the third of eight children.
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She was accepted into the University of Vienna.
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By passing her oral exam she became the second woman to ever get a physics doctorate from the University of Vienna.
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Lise Meitner moved to Berlin Germany seeking a better position, but was denied due to extreme gender discrimination.
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She began a partnership with Otto Hahn. Emil Fischer, the University of Berlin's institute's director, permitted the two to use a workshop in the Universities basement. Yet, Meitner was denied public rights, such as bathroom use due to gender discrimination.
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Gender discrimination lessend and Meitner was allowed to utilize the upper floors of the University. Also, a female's bathroom was installed.
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Otto Hahn joined the Kaiser Wilhelm Institute for Chemistry and Meitner became his assistant, as well Max Planck's.
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Fischer appointed her a scientific associate at Kaiser Wilhelm Institute of Chemistry along with Hahn, to jointly head the radioactivity section.
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Lise Meitner worked as an x-ray nurse and treated wounded soldiers with the Aurstrain army during World War 1 from 1915 to 1917.
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She was put in charge of her own Radophysics department at KWI.
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Meitner and Hahn published the dicovery of new element atomic number 91, proactinium. Meitner gave Hahn all the credit, by listing him as head author on the article, though she did most of the work.
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Meitner becamse the first woman ever allowed to lecture at the University of Berlin. One of her lectures, "The Significance of Radioactivity in Cosmic Processes", attracted the attention of many reporters.
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Meitner was awarded the Silver Leibniz Prize Medal, by the Berlin Academy of Sciences.
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Vienna Academy of Sciences awarded the Ignaz Lieben Prize to Meitner in 1925.
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Meitner was appointed as a professor at the University of Berlin in 1926, but was forced out of her job when Hitler came to power.
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When Hitler annexed Austria and it became a province of Germany, Meitner was forced to flee the country.
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In 1938, Meitner illegally crossed the border to Holland and became free. From there she to stay with Niels Bohr, whom her nephew worked for.
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In late 1938, Meitner was given a position at the Nobel Institure for Experimental Physics, in Stockholm Sweden. There she worked with Nobel Prize winning physicist Karl Manne Georg Siegbahn.
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In late 1938, Meitner and Fisch published the article "Disintegration of Uranium by Neutrons: A New Type of Nuclear Reaction" in British scientific journal 'Nature'. This explained the term nuclear fission. The information they gathered was assisted by the work of Hahn and Strassman.
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When Otto Hahn was awarded the Nobel Prize in Chemistry for his work on nuclear fission in 1944, he denied Meitner's contribution. He did this to protect himself during the time Meitner was under much suspicion.
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On August 6th, 1945 the atomic bombing of Hiroshima and Nagasaki occurred. This was made possible by her work, devastating Meitner. It also created suspicion that Meitner may have been involved in the attacks.
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In 1946, Meitner was invited as a visiting professor at the Catholic University in Washington, D.C.
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Meitner was victim of a heart attack in 1960, but survived.
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In 1966 the U.S. Atomic Energy Commision gave Meitner, Hahn, and Strassman the Enrico Fermi Medal. Meitner was the first non-american or female to be given the award.
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In 1967, Meitner expirienced a series of small strokes leaving her speech slurred.
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On October 27, 1968, Lise Meitner died peacefully in her sleep, just shy of her 90th birthday.
