Maria Sklodowska was born in Poland on the 7th November 1867.
As a child, Maria was a very good student. But she couldn’t go to university; girls weren’t allowed.
At 24, she left to study in Paris…
… and graduated in physics and mathematics from the Sorbonne University.
Then she met Pierre Curie, also a physicist. Wowed by this talented woman, he asked her to marry him.
Together, the couple studied radioactivity. A word they invented to describe the radiation from uranium, a mineral extracted from the ground.
Marie discovered two highly radioactive chemical elements: radium and polonium.
For this discovery and her work on radioactivity, she received two Nobel Prizes: one in physics, the other in chemistry.