Marie Curie
1867–1934 · Polish-French · Late Victorian / Early Modern
Known for: First woman to win a Nobel Prize; only person to win Nobels in two different sciences
Marie Curie won two Nobel Prizes in two different sciences—Physics in 1903 and Chemistry in 1911. She discovered polonium and radium, coined the term 'radioactivity,' and did it all in an era when women couldn't attend university in her home country of Poland.
She worked in a drafty shed, processing tons of pitchblende by hand to isolate radium. The radiation killed her—she died of aplastic anemia. Her personal papers are still too radioactive to handle without protective equipment.
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