A brief biography
Marie Curie is remembered for her discovery of radium and polonium, and her
huge contribution to the fight against cancer.
Born Maria Sklodowska on November 7, 1867 in Warsaw, Poland, she was the
youngest of five children of poor school teachers.
After her mother died and her father could no longer support her she become
a governess; reading and studying in her own time to quench her thirst for
knowledge. A passion she never lost.
To become a teacher - the only alternative which would allow her to be
independent - was never a possibility because money, or rather lack of it,
prevented her from a formal higher education. However, when her sister offered
her lodgings in Paris with a view to going to university, she grasped the
opportunity and moved to France in 1891.
She immediately entered Sorbonne University in Paris where she read physics
and mathematics - her insatiable appetite for learning meant she had naturally
discovered her love of the subjects.
It was in Paris, in 1894, that she met Pierre Curie - a scientist working
in the city - and who she married a year later. It was also around this time
that she adopted the French spelling of her name - Marie.
