She wasn’t just the first woman to win a Nobel Prize – she won it twice! And she wasn’t just the first person to win the Nobel Prize twice – she won it in two different scientific fields, and remains the only person ever to have done so! To read about Marie Curie’s life is to read about one world-changing ‘first’ after another.
Born in Warsaw in 1867, Curie moved to Paris in the 1890s to pursue a career in scientific research at the University of Paris. And it wasn’t long before she was making huge scientific discoveries, from the theory of radioactivity to the discovery of the elements ‘polonium’ and ‘radium’. During World War 1 she developed mobile radiography units to provide X-ray services to field hospitals, potentially saving thousands of lives. She died in 1934 of aplastic anaemia, caused by exposure to radiation over the course of her research and wartime radiological work.
Celebrate one of the most inspiring figures of the 20th century with this new Marie Curie tea towel!
