2. Maria Skłodowska – Curie
was born in Warsaw on 7th
November 1867. Her father
was a teacher. He taught
Maths and Physics.
Maria Skłodowska Curie was an excellent
student but she couldn’t study at University
of Warsaw because she was a woman. She
continued her education in Warsaw Floating
University -informal classes held in secret.
3. In 1891 Maria Skłodowska
Curie moved to Paris to get
an offical degree. She studied
at the Sorbonne in Paris. She
got her master degree in
Physics in 1893 and only a
year later in Mathematics.
She began to study on
different types of steel and
magnetic properties. She
needed a lab. She met French
physics Pierre Curie- her
future husband. They got
married in 1895 and she
accepted French citizenship.
4. Maria Skłodowska Curie
worked on uranium rays.
She used the word
radioactivity for the first
time. Together with her
husband they discovered a
new radioactive element
in 1898 -polonium (they
named it after Maria’s
native country - Poland).
They also detected
another radioactive
element- radium.
5. In 1903 she received the Nobel Price in Physics
together with her husband and Henri Becquerel for
their work on radioactivity. In 1906 she became the
first female professor and head of laboratory at the
Sorbonne University.
6. In 1911 she
won her second
Nobel Price
this time in
chemistry for
the discovery
of radium and
polonium.
After the World
War I she
worked on X-
rays.
7. Maria Skłodowska - Curie died in 1934. Her remains
are in Pantheon in Paris - the final resting place of
French greatest minds. She became the first and
only women to rest there.
