Maria Salomea Sklodowska was born in 1867 in Warsaw, Poland. She was the first woman to win a Nobel Prize, in Physics, and with her later win, in Chemistry, she became the first person to claim Nobel honors twice.
Marie Curie is remembered for her discovery of radium and polonium, and her huge contribution to finding treatments for cancer and she championed the development of X-rays. .Her father, a math and physics professor, and her mother, headmistress of a respected boarding school in Russian-occupied Warsaw, instilled in their five kids a love of learning. They also imbued them with an appreciation of Polish culture, which the Russian government discouraged.
