On April 20, 1902, Marie and Pierre Curie succeeded in isolating a chunk of the element radium, one of the earliest radioactive elements studied.
For this work they shared the Nobel Prize in Physics in 1903, with Henri Becquerel.
Pierre died in 1906, run over by a horse-drawn carriage. Marie won a second Nobel, in Chemistry, in 1911. Marie died in 1934 of aplastic anemia, a disease probably caused by her having received so much radiation over the course of her career.
More:
- Undark and the Radium Girls (sott.net)
- Girl History Month – Madame Marie Curie, Hottie (romancingthebee.com)
- Who Discovered Polonium (wanttoknowit.com)
- Leeds Building Society donates £12,000 to Marie Curie Cancer Care (leedsbuildingsociety.co.uk)
- A Most Notable Nobel (makezine.com)
- Women who ignored the limits: five famous female chemists (thechronicleflask.wordpress.com)
Posted by Ed Darrell 
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