Marie Curie

MArie Curie

born in 1867, birthday on 7 November

Marie Sklodowska-Curie was born in the capital of Poland: Warsaw. As a chemist and physicist she became famous above all for discovering radioactive radiation. Because Poland belonged to Russia at the time, Marie could not go to university. Under the Russian education system, universities were closed to women. To earn money, Marie went to work as a teacher. In the evenings she secretly attended classes with other women at the secret ‘Flying’ University of Warsaw. After that she studied chemistry, physics and mathematics in Paris. Later she began researching uranium rays. Marie discovered that the rays come from the nucleus of the atom. She gave the radiation the name “radioactivity”. With her research and discoveries she laid the foundation for a great deal of knowledge and many applications. It is no surprise that she won the Nobel Prize twice. She died of leukaemia, probably caused by the radiation she was exposed to throughout her research.

Source: Wikipedia.nl and Wikikids.nl

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