marie curie nobel centennial
celebrating women in science
Introduction
Selected Images
Chronology
Yale Symposium
Marie Curie Nobel Centennial: Celebrating
Women in Science
Marie Curie, Radioactivity, and the Emerging New Physics:
The Extraordinary Career of a Woman Scientist
Chronology
| 1867 | Maria Sklodowska born in November 7 in Warsaw, Poland (then under Russian occupation), the youngest of five children of Wladislaw Sklodowski, a secondary school teacher of physics, and Bronislawa Boguska, headmistress of a private girl's school. |
| 1883 | Graduates at the head of her class from gymnasium (secondary school). |
| 1885 | Becomes a governess; studies science on her own. |
| 1891 | Joins her sister Bronia in Paris and begins studies at the Sorbonne (University of Paris). |
| 1893 | Obtains her license in physics at the Sorbonne. |
| 1894 | Meets Pierre Curie, director of laboratory work at the Municipal Industrial School of Physics and Chemistry. Begins study of magnetic properties of various steels for the Society for the Encouragement of National Industry. Obtains her license in mathematics at the Sorbonne. |
| 1895 | Marries Pierre Curie in July. Pierre Curie defends his doctoral thesis; obtains a chair of physics at the Municipal Industrial School of Physics and Chemistry. Wilhelm Conrad Röntgen discovers X-rays. |
| 1896 | Obtains qualification needed to teach in the lycées. Henri Becquerel discovers “uranium rays.” |
| 1897 | Daughter Irene born in November. Begins working on doctoral thesis in December, studying the unusual rays discovered by Henri Becquerel; obtains permission to work in Pierre Curie's laboratory. |
| 1898 | Publishes her first research project on magnetism of tempered steel. Publishes results of her solo work on Becquerel's rays; suggests the existence of a new element. Pierre Curie joins her in collaborative research in March. They continue to collaborate on the properties of radioactivity through 1902. Announcement of new elements, polonium in July and radium in November. |
| 1900 | Pierre Curie appointed a professor in a minor chair at the Sorbonne. Marie Curie appointed professor in the Superior Normal School for Young Women at Sèvres. |
| 1902 | Isolates a decigram of radium chloride, calculates an atomic weight for radium, and placed it in the periodic table of elements. Rutherford and Soddy announce the transmutation theory to account for the energy produced by radioactive materials. |
| 1903 | Defends her thesis, Recherches sur les substances radioactives (Researches on Radioactive Substances), and receives her doctorate in science. Thesis is reprinted several times and in several languages. Award of the Nobel Prize in Physics to Henri Becquerel, Pierre Curie, and Marie Curie for studies on spontaneous radioactivity. |
| 1904 | Daughter Eve Denise born. A new chair at the Sorbonne is created for Pierre Curie; Marie Curie becomes chief of laboratory work in the laboratory to be associated with the chair. |
| 1906 | Pierre Curie is run over by a heavy horse-drawn wagon and dies instantly. Marie Curie appointed to take charge of his course at the Sorbonne; she is made professor two years afterwards. She becomes the first woman to teach at the Sorbonne. |
| 1910 | Isolates radium. Publishes her course as Traité de Radioactivité (Treatise on Radioactivity) |
| 1911 | Attends first Solvay Conference as the only woman among such notable scientists as Poincaré, Einstein, Planck, and Rutherford. Receives second Nobel Prize, in chemistry, for discovery of polonium and radium. Fails to be elected to the Academy of Sciences. At the request of an International Commission, establishes an international standard for radium; the unit is the curie. |
| 1912 | Building of Radium Institute is begun. One building will house Marie Curie's laboratory devoted to the physics and chemistry of radioactivity, and the second, headed by Dr. Claudius Regaud, for the investigation of medical applications. |
| 1914 -18 | Organizes radiological services in wartime hospitals; outfits X-ray cars; teaches radiological technicians. |
| 1919 | Radium Institute is now fully open. Marie Curie's laboratory flourishes in the 1920s and 1930s. |
| 1921 | With Irène and Eve, tours America at the invitation of journalist Missy Meloney; accepts a gram of radium from the President of the United States; attends Yale commencement where she receives an honorary Yale Doctorate of Science. |
| 1925 | Irene Curie obtains her doctorate in science based on work done in her mother's laboratory. |
| 1926 | Irene Curie marries Frédéric Joliot, who is carrying out research for his doctoral degree in Marie Curie's laboratory. |
| 1929 | Second tour of America; receives the gift of a gram of radium for the Radium Institute in Warsaw. |
| 1934 | Dies July 4 of “aplastic pernicious anemia” |
| 1935 | Irene Joliot-Curie and Frédéric Joliot awarded Nobel Prize in Chemistry for artificial radioactivity. They see through publication Marie Curie's textbook, Radioactivité, based on her lectures, that she completed just before she died. |
| 1937 | Eve Curie publishes Madame Curie, one of the most widely read scientific biographies of all time. |
