1. Marie Solomea Sklodowska 1867-1934
Synopsis: The life of Marie Solomea Sklodowska
Born on the 7th of November 1867 and died on the 4th July 1934, She is known for her work with Radioactivity, Polonium and Radium. She met Pierre Curie in 1892 and moved to Poland in They got married in 1895.

2. Early Life
Marie was born in the Russian part of Poland in Warsaw, Her family, the Sklodowska’s, were respected teachers but they were never wealthy. Curie received a grounded education and was especially keen on Maths and Physics – subjects taught by her father. For a short time after graduating from school, Curie, like her parents, did some teaching.

3. Education
Marie made an agreement with her older sister, Bronislawa, that she would work for two years to support Bronislawa’s education in Paris and that once her sister had graduated, she would reciprocate for Marie.
In 1891 Curie moved to Paris to continue her scientific studies at the Sorbonne. She was to remain in the French capital to continue her famous research on radioactivity.
In 1893 and 1894, Curie was awarded a degree in Physics and Maths respectively. She studied during the day and privately tutored at night to earn the money to pay her bills.

4. Her Career
Marie Curie continued the works of Henri Becquerel who discovered that uranium salts gave off rays, He had in fact, discovered the radioactive property of uranium but did not know it.
Marie found that the radioactivity that had baffled Becquerel did not come from the molecules within the uranium but from the much smaller atoms. Curie also found that the amount of measured radiation depended on the amount of uranium she was working on. The larger the source, the more radiation was measured.
In 1903, Marie was awarded a Doctorate of Science from the University of Paris. Her studies had been supervised by the man who had initially inspired her research – Henri Becquerel. In the same year the Curie’s along with Becquerel were awarded a Nobel Prize in Physics.
The Nobel Prize made the Curie’s very famous within France. Marie was the first female to be so honoured and she became Director of Research at the research laboratory her husband established at the Sorbonne.
However, Curie’s research was not without problems no one understood at the time – radiation poisoning. Almost on a daily basis, Marie and Pierre worked in normal research clothing. Anything bordering on protective clothing was unheard of them unless it involved avoiding chemical splashes on clothes.
After her husbands death in 1906 Marie became the first women to be made a professor at the Sorbonne, She now dedicated her life to her studies and in 1911 the Royal Swedish Academy of Science awarded her a second Nobel Prize – this time for Chemistry. She was the first person to be awarded two such prizes – either individually or shared.

5. Her death 1934
Marie’s reputation was such that she was put in charge of the famed Pasteur Institute and the University of Paris created her own radiation laboratory. However, it is generally accepted that her body, by the 1930’s, was suffering the effects of radiation exposure. Her writings had commented on how pretty she had found the blue-green colours given off by the radioactive isotopes she frequently carried around in her pockets. When they were not in her pockets, she simply kept them in desk drawers. There was not any knowledge of the dangers then. Marie Curie died on July 4th, 1934.
The therapeutic properties of radium were of particular interest. This led to the opening of radium institutes in France and Poland just before World War 1. Here, the further scientific and medical uses of this new species were explored. Marie did much to promote the use of radium to ease suffering. During the war, her daughter Irene and herself dedicated themselves to the treating of the wounded, developing a field system of portable X-ray machines.

6. Inspiration
When the Hampstead-based Marie Curie Hospital was transferred to the NHS, a group of committee members from the hospital decided to preserve the name of Marie Curie in the charitable medical field. This was the beginning of the Marie Curie Memorial Foundation − a charity dedicated to alleviating suffering from cancer today − today known as Marie Curie.