Marie curie 9263538 1 402

Marie Curie

By facebooker_10157206023581885

  • Maria Sklodowska

    Birth, Warsaw (Modern-day Poland)

  • Floating University

    Maria Sklodowski attended secret classes in Warsaw, known as the "floating university" as women were not allowed to continue their education

  • Marie Curie enrolls at the Sorbonne

    Because women could not attend university in Poland, Curie saved up to move to France, one of the few countries at the time that allowed women to continue their education.

  • Earns Master's

    Maria Sklodowski earns a master's degree in physics.

  • Earns second degree

    Maria Sklodowski earns a degree in mathematics.

  • Weds Pierre Curie

    Maria Sklodowska weds Pierre Curie, a professor at Sorbonne.

  • Announces thesis on uranium

  • Birth of daughter Irene

    The Curie's first daughter, Irene, was born in 1897. Irene would go on to win a Nobel Prize in chemistry in 1935.

  • Curie begins research at School of Physics and Chemistry in Paris

  • Discoveries concerning radiation published

  • Radium

    Curie was able to extract radium from the mineral pitchblende

  • First Nobel Prize

    Marie Curie won the Nobel Prize for Physics, becoming the first woman to win a Nobel Prize

  • Second Nobel Prize

    Curie won a second Nobel Prize in 1911 for chemistry, becoming the first person to win two Nobel Prizes.

  • Ernest Rutherford formulates atom model

    Rutherford applied Curie's discoveries to his work, creating the still-used atomic model

  • Establishes Radium Institute in honor of her late husband

    Marie Curie sets up a medical research lab dedicated to studying radioactivity

  • Appointed director of Red Cross Radiology Service

  • Little Curies

    Marie Curie pushed the idea of using portable x-ray machines in the field during World War I. The machines would become known as "Little Curies"

  • Cofounded Polish Chemical Society

  • Warsaw Radium Institute founded

  • Death

    Marie Curie died on July 4, 1934 from aplastic anemia - most likely due to long-term exposure to the radioactive materials she studied.