Marie Curie

AKA:

Marie Salomea Skłodowska Curie, Marie Skłodowska Curie

Birth Name:

Maria Salomea Skłodowska

Birth Date:

November 7, 1867

Birth Place:

Warsaw, Poland

Death Date:

July 4, 1934

Place of Death:

Sancellemoz Sanatorium, Passy, Haute-Savoie, France

Age:

Cause of Death:

Aplastic anemia from exposure to radiation

Cemetery Name:

Le Panthéon

Claim to Fame:

Science

Marie Curie was a Polish and naturalized-French physicist and chemist who conducted pioneering research on radioactivity. She was the first woman to win a Nobel Prize, the first person and the only woman to win the Nobel Prize twice, and the only person to win the Nobel Prize in two scientific fields. She was the first woman to become a professor at the University of Paris in 1906, and the first of only five women to be buried in Le Panthéon. Working with her husband, Pierre Curie, Marie Curie discovered polonium and radium in 1898. In 1903 they won the Nobel Prize for Physics for discovering radioactivity. In 1911 she won the Nobel Prize for Chemistry for isolating pure radium. Following work on X-rays during World War I, she studied radioactive substances and their medical applications.

Fun Fact

Daughter Irene Joliot-Curie died in Paris on 17 March 1956 from an acute leukemia linked to her exposure to polonium and X-rays. Her sister, Ève Curie, died in her sleep on 22 October 2007 in her residence on Sutton Place in Manhattan at age 102.

Cemetery Information:

Final Resting Place:

Le Panthéon

Place du Panthéon

Paris, , 75005

France

Europe

Map:

Grave Location:

Crypt

Grave Location Description

Enter through the main entrance, and go straight all the way to the back of the building. There will be a sign pointing left to go to the Crypt. Follow the signs and go down the staircase to the Crypt. In the Crypt, equal in size to the main hall above, though with space consumed by structural elements, you’ll see the tombs and memorials in various rooms branching out from the main hallway. Marie Curie is buried with her husband, Pierre Curie, in the same alcove and her tomb is directly above his.