She was born in Warsaw on November 7, 1867. In 1893 she graduated in the Sorbonne in Physical Sciences and, in 1894, in Mathematics. A year later, she married the scientist Pierre Curie. In 1898, when studying the properties of urian rays discovered by Henri Becquerel, the Curie couple discovered two new chemical elements: the polonium -which owes the name to her native country- and the radio, that would give them universal fame.

     

In 1903 she received the Nobel Prize in Physics with Pierre Curie and Henri Becquerel, becoming the first woman to be awarded. In 1906, after the death of her husband, she held his chair at the Sorbonne -she was the first woman professor at this university- and managed the laboratory, achieving to isolate pure radio. In 1911 she received the Nobel Prize in Chemistry, , becoming the first person to be awarded twice.

      

During the First World War, she designed the famous Curie Cars, equipped with X-ray equipment with which she radiographed thousands of wounded and saved countless lives. Since the end of the war she directed the Paris Radio Institute - an international radioactive reference - and traveled to many countries, becoming a great ambassador of science. She went to Spain on three occasions: in 1919, to participate in the First National Congress of Medicine; in 1931, to offer a conference at the Student Residence and in 1933, to preside over the international debate on ​​The future of culture.       

She died in a sanatorium in the French Alps on July 4, 1934 at age 66, because of a pernicious anemia caused by excessive exposure to radioactive material. In 1995 she was solemnly buried in the Pantheon of Illustrious Men in Paris, being the first woman and the first foreigner to achieve that honor.