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Marie Sklodowska Biography

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Marie Sklodowska was born in Warsaw, modern day Poland, on November 7, 1867. Her parents were both teachers, and she was the youngest of five siblings, Zosia, Józef, Bronya, and Hela. As a child Curie was said to take after her father, Wladyslaw, a math and physics instructor. She was a bright child and excelled at school. But when she was only 10, Curie lost her mother, Bronislawa, to tuberculosis. Marie received a general education in local schools and some scientific training from her father. She was a top student in her secondary school, but Curie could not attend the men-only University of Warsaw. She instead continued her education in Warsaw's "floating university," a set of underground, informal classes held in secret. Her and her sister both longed to earn an official degree but lacked the financial …show more content…

She is the most famous female scientist of all time, and has received numerous posthumous honors. To date, Curie is the only woman to win two Nobel Prizes, but her second win set her apart as the only scientist, of either gender, to win two Nobel Prize awards. Marie paved the road for future female scientists, of the 357 people who have ever won a STEM-related Nobel Prize, only 16 of them have been female. In 1995, her and her husband's remains were interred in the Panthéon in Paris, the final resting place of France's greatest minds. Curie became the first and only woman to be laid to rest there. Curie also passed down her love and understanding of science to the next generation. Her daughter Irène Joliot-Curie followed in her mother's footsteps, winning the Nobel Prize in Chemistry in 1935. Joliot-Curie shared this honor with her husband, Frédéric Joliot, for their work on their synthesis of new radioactive elements. Even today several educational, research institutions, and medical centers use the Curie name, including the Institut Curie and the Pierre and Marie Curie University, both can be found in

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