Marie won the 1911 Nobel Prize in Chemistry for her discovery of the elements polonium and radium, using techniques she invented for isolating radioactive isotopes.

[b] Marie Curie died in 1934, aged 66, at the Sancellemoz sanatorium in Passy (Haute-Savoie), France, of aplastic anaemia likely from exposure to radiation in the course of her scientific research and in the course of her radiological work at field hospitals during World War I.

Maria Skłodowska was born in Warsaw, in Congress Poland in the Russian Empire, on 7 November 1867, the fifth and youngest child of well-known teachers[11] Bronisława, née Boguska, and Władysław Skłodowski.

[15] Maria's paternal grandfather, Józef Skłodowski had been principal of the Lublin primary school attended by Bolesław Prus,[16] who became a leading figure in Polish literature.

[17] Władysław Skłodowski taught mathematics and physics, subjects that Maria was to pursue, and was also director of two Warsaw gymnasia (secondary schools) for boys.

[12][20] In connection with this, Maria took a position first as a home tutor in Warsaw, then for two years as a governess in Szczuki with a landed family, the Żorawskis, who were relatives of her father.

Still, as an old man and a mathematics professor at the Warsaw Polytechnic, he would sit contemplatively before the statue of Maria Skłodowska that had been erected in 1935 before the Radium Institute, which she had founded in 1932.

[15][21] At the beginning of 1890, Bronisława—who a few months earlier had married Kazimierz Dłuski, a Polish physician and social and political activist—invited Maria to join them in Paris.

[20] She tutored, studied at the Flying University, and began her practical scientific training (1890–1891) in a chemistry laboratory at the Museum of Industry and Agriculture at Krakowskie Przedmieście 66, near Warsaw's Old Town.

[12][25][c] Skłodowska had begun her scientific career in Paris with an investigation of the magnetic properties of various steels, commissioned by the Society for the Encouragement of National Industry.

It [is] likely that already at this early stage of her career [she] realized that... many scientists would find it difficult to believe that a woman could be capable of the original work in which she was involved.

They did not realise at the time that what they were searching for was present in such minute quantities that they would eventually have to process tonnes of the ore.[36] In July 1898, Curie and her husband published a joint paper announcing the existence of an element they named "polonium", in honour of her native Poland,[37] which would for another twenty years remain partitioned among three empires (Russia, Austria, and Prussia).

[23][45] That month the couple were invited to the Royal Institution in London to give a speech on radioactivity; being a woman, she was prevented from speaking, and Pierre Curie alone was allowed to.

Walking across the Rue Dauphine in heavy rain, he was struck by a horse-drawn vehicle and fell under its wheels, fracturing his skull and killing him instantly.

[56] When the scandal broke, she was away at a conference in Belgium; on her return, she found an angry mob in front of her house and had to seek refuge, with her daughters, in the home of her friend Camille Marbo.

[53] International recognition for her work had been growing to new heights, and the Royal Swedish Academy of Sciences, overcoming opposition prompted by the Langevin scandal, honoured her a second time, with the 1911 Nobel Prize in Chemistry.

Curie replied that she would be present at the ceremony, because "the prize has been given to her for her discovery of polonium and radium" and that "there is no relation between her scientific work and the facts of her private life".

A delegation of celebrated Polish men of learning, headed by novelist Henryk Sienkiewicz, encouraged her to return to Poland and continue her research in her native country.

[15] Curie's second Nobel Prize enabled her to persuade the French government to support the Radium Institute, built in 1914, where research was conducted in chemistry, physics, and medicine.

[60] She saw a need for field radiological centres near the front lines to assist battlefield surgeons,[59] including to obviate amputations when in fact limbs could be saved.

[52][65][d] In 1921, U.S. President Warren G. Harding received Curie at the White House to present her with the 1 gram of radium collected in the United States, and the First Lady praised her as an example of a professional achiever who was also a supportive wife.

[72][10] She sat on the committee until 1934 and contributed to League of Nations' scientific coordination with other prominent researchers such as Albert Einstein, Hendrik Lorentz, and Henri Bergson.

[15][77] A few months later, on 4 July 1934, she died aged 66 at the Sancellemoz sanatorium in Passy, Haute-Savoie, from aplastic anaemia believed to have been contracted from her long-term exposure to radiation, causing damage to her bone marrow.

[77] She had carried test tubes containing radioactive isotopes in her pocket,[79] and she stored them in her desk drawer, remarking on the faint light that the substances gave off in the dark.

[63] When Curie's body was exhumed in 1995, the French Office de Protection contre les Rayonnements Ionisants (OPRI) "concluded that she could not have been exposed to lethal levels of radium while she was alive".

On the experimental level the discovery of radium provided men like Ernest Rutherford with sources of radioactivity with which they could probe the structure of the atom.

[41]In addition to helping to overturn established ideas in physics and chemistry, Curie's work has had a profound effect in the societal sphere.

[15] As one of the most famous scientists in history, Marie Curie has become an icon in the scientific world and has received tributes from across the globe, even in the realm of pop culture.

The show was since translated in English (as Marie Curie a New Musical) and has been performed several times across Asia and Europe, receiving its official Off West End premiere in London's Charing Cross Theatre in summer 2024.

[114] In 2011, a commemorative 20-zloty banknote depicting Curie was issued by the National Bank of Poland on the 100th anniversary of the scientist receiving the Nobel Prize in Chemistry.