An iconic figure who broke all the gender barriers and went on to become one of the most renowned scientists in the world. Marie Sklodowska Curie or simply Marie Curie was a Polish-born French physicist and chemist who completely revolutionized the world of science with her groundbreaking research on radioactivity. Being a woman, she dared to deal with all the challenges in male-dominated society and follow her passion for science. She discovered two new chemical elements polonium and radium which led to the development in cancer treatment. Aside from all these, Curie is recognized as a rebel whose life story is an inspiration for women across the world. Marie Curie is regarded as the "woman of firsts". She became the first woman professor at the University of Paris in 1906. She was the first woman to win a Nobel prize. Also, she was the first (and the only till date) person to win Nobel prize in two science fields. Curie suffered from extreme poverty during childhood. She even worked as a governess to provide financial support to her family. After migrating to Paris for higher education, she started working part-time in order to make ends meet. In fact, there were times when she got sick due to hunger. Marie Curie and her husband Pierre Curie conducted their research on radioactivity together. In 1903, she received her first Nobel prize (in Physics) in share with Pierre and physicist Henri Becquerel. She won her second Nobel prize (in Chemistry) in 1911. Although she became a French citizen, Curie always remained a Polish from her heart. In fact, she went by her full name, Marie Sklodowska Curie. She hired a private tutor to teach her daughter Polish, and even named the element Polonium that she discovered after her motherland Poland. When World War I started, Curie realized that the soldiers had to be operated urgently, but there's a lack of X-ray machines at the field hospitals. So, she installed X-ray equipment and generators into cars and designed mobile radiography units (known as “Petites Curies”) which could help injured soldiers on the site. She made 20 such vehicles and then installed 200 more at the field hospitals. Also, she formed a team of women (which included her daughter) to operate all these machines. Thus, she saved more than 1 million soldiers at that time. Marie Curie founded the Curie Institute in Paris in 1920 and the Curie Institute in Warsaw in 1932. Both the institutions are still used for vital medical research. While conducting research on radioactivity, Curie had no idea about the harmful effects of radiation on health. She died of aplastic anemia, caused by extreme exposure to radiation, on 4th July 1934. Her notebooks are still radioactive today, stored in lead-lined boxes.
