ChronoFive
Play today’s puzzle
Setting the scene
Maria Skłodowska was born in Warsaw on November 7, 1867, under Russian partition; her parents were teachers. She worked as a governess to fund her sister Bronisława's Paris medical studies before moving to the Sorbonne herself in 1891.
What happened
She married physicist Pierre Curie in 1895; together they isolated polonium and radium in a leaky shed, sharing the 1903 Nobel in Physics with Henri Becquerel. After Pierre's 1906 death, she won the 1911 Nobel in Chemistry alone—the first person with two science Nobels.
Why it still matters
Curie directed a mobile X-ray unit in World War I and died in 1934 from aplastic anemia linked to radiation exposure. Memorable detail: her notebooks at the Bibliothèque nationale de France remain so radioactive that researchers must sign waivers and wear protective gear to view them.
Background
She remains the only person with Nobel Prizes in two sciences.