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If you want a glimpse [br]of Marie Curie's manuscripts,

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you'll have to sign a waiver and put on[br]protective gear

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to shield yourself [br]from radiation contamination.

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Madame Curie's remains, too,[br]were interred in a lead-lined coffin,

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keeping the radiation that was the heart[br]of her research,

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and likely the cause of her death,[br]well contained.

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Growing up in Warsaw [br]in Russian-occupied Poland,

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the young Marie, originally named[br]Maria Sklodowska,

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was a brilliant student,[br]but she faced some challenging barriers.

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As a woman, she was barred from pursuing[br]higher education,

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so in an act of defiance,

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Marie enrolled in the Floating University,

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a secret institution that provided[br]clandestine education to Polish youth.

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By saving money and working[br]as a governess and tutor,

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she eventually was able to move to Paris[br]to study at the reputed Sorbonne.

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There, Marie earned both a physics[br]and mathematics degree

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surviving largely on bread and tea,

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and sometimes fainting [br]from near starvation.

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In Paris, Marie met the physicist [br]Pierre Curie,

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who shared his lab and his heart with her.

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But she longed to be back in Poland.

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Upon her return to Warsaw, though,

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she found that securing [br]an academic position as a woman

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remained a challenge.

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All was not lost.

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Back in Paris, [br]the lovelorn Pierre was waiting,

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and the pair quickly married and became[br]a formidable scientific team.

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Another physicist's work sparked[br]Marie Curie's interest.

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In 1896, Henri Becquerel discovered[br]that uranium spontaneously emitted

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a mysterious X-ray-like radiation that[br]could interact with photographic film.

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Curie soon found that the element[br]thorium emitted similar radiation.

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Most importantly, [br]the strength of the radiation

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depended solely on the element's quantity,

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and was not affected by physical[br]or chemical changes.

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This led her to conclude that radiation[br]was coming from something fundamental

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within the atoms of each element.

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The idea was radical

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and helped to disprove the long-standing[br]model of atoms as indivisible objects.

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Next, by focusing on a super radioactive [br]ore called pitchblende,

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the Curies realized that uranium alone[br]couldn't be creating all the radiation.

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So, were there other radioactive elements[br]that might be responsible?

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In 1898, they reported two new elements,

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polonium, named for Marie's native Poland,

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and radium, the Latin word for ray.

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They also coined the term radioactivity[br]along the way.

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By 1902, the Curies had extracted a tenth[br]of a gram of pure radium chloride salt

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from several tons of pitchblende,

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an incredible feat at the time.

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Later that year, Pierre Curie [br]and Henri Becquerel

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were nominated for [br]the Nobel Prize in physics,

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but Marie was overlooked.

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Pierre took a stand in support[br]of his wife's well-earned recognition.

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And so both of the Curies and Becquerel[br]shared the 1903 Nobel Prize,

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making Marie Curie the first female[br]Nobel Laureate.

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Well funded and well respected,[br]the Curies were on a roll.

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But tragedy struck in 1906 when Pierre[br]was crushed by a horse-drawn cart

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as he crossed a busy intersection.

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Marie, devastated, immersed herself[br]in her research

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and took over Pierre's teaching position[br]at the Sorbonne,

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becoming the school's [br]first female professor.

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Her solo work was fruitful.

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In 1911, she won yet another Nobel,

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this time in chemistry for her earlier[br]discovery of radium and polonium,

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and her extraction and analysis of[br]pure radium and its compounds.

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This made her the first, [br]and to this date,

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only person to win Nobel Prizes[br]in two different sciences.

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Professor Curie put [br]her discoveries to work,

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changing the landscape of medical research[br]and treatments.

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She opened mobile radiology units[br]during World War I,

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and investigated radiation's[br]effects on tumors.

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However, these benefits to humanity[br]may have come at a high personal cost.

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Curie died in 1934 of [br]a bone marrow disease,

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which many today think was caused[br]by her radiation exposure.

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Marie Curie's revolutionary research

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laid the groundwork for our understanding[br]of physics and chemistry,

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blazing trails in oncology, technology, [br]medicine, and nuclear physics,

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to name a few.

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For good or ill, her discoveries [br]in radiation launched a new era,

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unearthing some of [br]science's greatest secrets.