Marie Curie

Every entry, with its source

At 0

1. Nov 7, 1867

   Born in Warsaw under Russian rule

   The youngest of five children. Her father taught physics.

   Source: en.wikipedia.org

At 15

1. Jun 1883

   Graduated from gymnasium with a gold medal

   She then spent a year in the countryside recovering from a nervous collapse.

   Source: en.wikipedia.org

At 18

1. c. 1886

   Tutored to pay for her sister's studies in Paris

   Women could not enroll at Warsaw University then. The sisters agreed that one would go first and the other would follow.

   Source: en.wikipedia.org

At 24

1. Nov 1891

   Went to Paris at 24 and enrolled at the Sorbonne

   She studied from an unheated attic room, and her shaky French made the first months hard.

   Source: en.wikipedia.org

At 25

1. Jul 1893

   Took her physics degree at the top of her class

   A math degree followed the next year.

   Source: en.wikipedia.org

At 27

1. Jul 26, 1895

   Married Pierre Curie

   They met when she was looking for lab space. The honeymoon was a bicycle trip.

   Source: en.wikipedia.org

At 29

1. Sep 1897

   Her first daughter, Irène, was born

   Irène would go on to win a Nobel Prize in chemistry herself.

   Source: en.wikipedia.org

At 30

1. Jul 1898

   Discovered a new element, polonium

   She named it after Poland, her homeland, and coined the word radioactivity.

   Source: en.wikipedia.org

At 31

1. Dec 1898

   Discovered radium

   Over the next four years she boiled tons of ore in a shed to isolate a tenth of a gram.

   Source: en.wikipedia.org

At 35

1. Jun 1903

   Earned her doctorate

   She was the first woman in France to hold one.

   Source: en.wikipedia.org

At 36

1. Dec 10, 1903

   Nobel Prize in Physics, the first for a woman

   At first only her husband was nominated. Pierre objected, and they shared the prize.

   Source: nobelprize.org

At 38

1. Apr 19, 1906

   Pierre died in a carriage accident

   At 38 she was left with their two daughters.

   Source: en.wikipedia.org

At 39

1. Nov 1906

   First woman professor at the Sorbonne

   She took over her husband's teaching post.

   Source: en.wikipedia.org

At 44

1. Dec 10, 1911

   Nobel Prize in Chemistry, her second

   That same year the French Academy of Sciences voted her down because she was a woman.

   Source: nobelprize.org

At 46

1. c. 1914

   Built mobile X-ray vans and drove them to the WWI front

   She learned to drive herself. The vans are thought to have X-rayed over a million wounded soldiers.

   Source: en.wikipedia.org

At 53

1. May 1921

   US tour: a gram of radium from the president

   American women had raised the money to buy it for her research.

   Source: en.wikipedia.org

At 66

1. Jul 4, 1934

   Died at 66 of aplastic anemia from radiation exposure

   Her notebooks and belongings are still kept in lead boxes because they remain radioactive.

   Source: en.wikipedia.org