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

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

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to shield yourself 
from radiation contamination.

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

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keeping the radiation that was the heart
of her research,

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and likely the cause of her death,
well contained.

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Growing up in Warsaw 
in Russian-occupied Poland,

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the young Marie, originally named
Maria Sklodowska,

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

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As a woman, she was barred from pursuing
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
clandestine education to Polish youth.

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By saving money and working
as a governess and tutor,

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

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There, Marie earned both a physics
and mathematics degree

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surviving largely on bread and tea,

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and sometimes fainting 
from near starvation.

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In Paris, Marie met the physicist 
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 
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, 
the lovelorn Pierre was waiting,

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and the pair quickly married and became
a formidable scientific team.

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Another physicist's work sparked
Marie Curie's interest.

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In 1896, Henri Becquerel discovered
that uranium spontaneously emitted

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

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Curie soon found that the element
thorium emitted similar radiation.

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Most importantly, 
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
or chemical changes.

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This led her to conclude that radiation
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
model of atoms as indivisible objects.

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Next, by focusing on a super radioactive 
ore called pitchblende,

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

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So, were there other radioactive elements
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
along the way.

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By 1902, the Curies had extracted a tenth
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 
and Henri Becquerel

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were nominated for 
the Nobel Prize in physics,

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but Marie was overlooked.

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

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

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making Marie Curie the first female
Nobel Laureate.

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

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But tragedy struck in 1906 when Pierre
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
in her research

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

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becoming the school's 
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
discovery of radium and polonium,

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and her extraction and analysis of
pure radium and its compounds.

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This made her the first, 
and to this date,

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only person to win Nobel Prizes
in two different sciences.

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Professor Curie put 
her discoveries to work,

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changing the landscape of medical research
and treatments.

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She opened mobile radiology units
during World War I,

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and investigated radiation's
effects on tumors.

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

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Curie died in 1934 of 
a bone marrow disease,

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which many today think was caused
by her radiation exposure.

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Marie Curie's revolutionary research

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laid the groundwork for our understanding
of physics and chemistry,

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blazing trails in oncology, technology, 
medicine, and nuclear physics,

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to name a few.

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

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unearthing some of 
science's greatest secrets.