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Marie Curie was born in Warsaw, Poland, in 1867.
Her family loved learning, but they had little money,
and at that time women could not study at a university in Poland.
So Marie worked for years as a teacher and saved every coin.
In 1891 she moved to Paris to study science and math.
Life there was hard.
She lived in a small, cold room and sometimes forgot to eat.
Still, she loved her studies and finished near the top of her class.
In Paris she met Pierre Curie, a quiet French scientist.
They married in 1895 and began working together in an old building that was more like a shed than a lab.
Marie studied the strange, invisible rays that come out of some materials.
She gave this power a name: radioactivity.
After years of slow, careful work, she and Pierre found two new elements.
They called the first one polonium, in honor of Poland, and the second one radium.
In 1903 Marie shared the Nobel Prize in Physics with Pierre and Henri Becquerel.
She was the first woman ever to win a Nobel Prize.
Three years later, Pierre died in a street accident.
Marie was heartbroken, but she carried on their work and raised their two daughters alone.
In 1911 she won a second Nobel Prize, this time in Chemistry.
No person had ever won two before.
During World War I, Marie built small X-ray cars and drove them close to the fighting.
Doctors used the machines to find bullets and broken bones,
and thousands of hurt soldiers got better care because of her.
Marie Curie died in 1934 from an illness caused by years of work with radiation.
People remember her as one of the greatest scientists in history
— and as proof that courage and hard work can open any door.
