Marie Curie, Physicist (1867 - 1934)

Born Manya Sklodowska, on November 7, 1867 in Warsaw, the youngest of the five children of Wladislaw and Bronislava Boguska Sklodowska. Marie was a brilliant student, gaining a gold medal upon completing her secondary education in 1883. As girls could not attend universities in Russian-dominated Poland, Marie at her father´s suggestion spent a year in the country with friends. On returning to her father´s house in Warsaw the next summer, she had to begin to earn her living through private tutoring, and she also became associated with the "Floating University," a group of young men and women who tried to quench their thirst for knowledge in semi-clandestine sessions. In early 1886 she accepted a job as governess with a family living in Szczuki, but the intellectual loneliness she experienced there only stiffened her determination to achieve somehow her dream to become a university student. One of her sisters, Bronya, was already in Paris, successfully passing the examinations in medicine.