Marie Curie

Marie Curie

Early Life

Marie Curie was born on November 7, 1867, in Warsaw, Poland. Her birth name was Maria Sklodowska, but her family called her Manya. Her parents were both teachers. Growing up the child of two teachers, Marie was taught to read and write early. She was a very bright child and she also worked hard on her studies.

Marie was also the youngest of five childs.

Hard Times in Poland

Poland was under the control of Russia and people were not even allowed to read or write anything in the Polish language. Unfortunately, her father lost his job because he was in favour of Polish rule. When Marie was ten, her oldest sister Zofia became sick and died from the disease typhus. Two years later her mother died from tuberculosis. This was a difficult time for her.

After graduating from high school, Marie wanted to attend a university, but this wasn't something that young women could do in Poland in the 1800s. The university was for men. However, there was a famous university in Paris called the Sorbonne that women could attend. Marie didn't have the money to go there but she agreed to work to help her sister Bronislawa pay so she could go to a school in France and she could help Marie after she graduated.

Her life in France

It took six years for Bronislawa to graduate and become a doctor but after that Marie moved to France and entered the Sorbonne. Marie had read a lot of math and physics books, so she knew she wanted to become a scientist.

Marie arrived in France in 1891, and she changed her name from Manya to Marie, so she could fit in. Marie lived the life of a poor college student, but she loved that because she was learning so much. And after three years she earned her degree in Physics!

In 1894 Marie met Pierre Curie. Pierre was a scientist like her. They fell in love and they married a year later. Soon they had their first child, a daughter named Irene!

Scientific Discoveries

Marie became fascinated by rays that were recently discovered by scientists Wilhelm Roentgen and Henri Becquerel. Roentgen discovered X-rays and Becquerel had found rays given off by an element called uranium. Marie began to do experiments.

One day she was examining a material called pitchblende. She expected there to be a few rays from the uranium in pitchblende, but instead, she found a lot of rays. She soon realized that there must be a new, undiscovered element in pitchblende.

New Elements

Marie and Pierre spent many hours in the science lab researching pitchblende and the new element. They eventually figured out that there were two new elements in pitchblende. They had discovered two new elements for the periodic table!

Marie named one of the elements polonium because of her homeland Poland and she named the other one radium because it gave off such strong rays. The Curies came up with the term "radioactivity" to describe elements that emitted strong rays.