Curie Isolates Radium: The Age of Radioactivity Begins
Marie and Pierre Curie isolated a tenth of a gram of pure radium chloride on April 20, 1902, after processing several tons of pitchblende ore in a leaking shed at the Ecole de Physique et de Chimie in Paris. The work was physically grueling: Marie stirred boiling chemical solutions in iron cauldrons, day after day, refining the ore through fractional crystallization. The isolated radium glowed blue in the dark. Pierre carried a vial of it in his vest pocket to demonstrate its properties, developing radiation burns that he and Marie dismissed as minor. Marie won two Nobel Prizes for this work but died in 1934 from aplastic anemia caused by years of radiation exposure. Her laboratory notebooks are still too radioactive to handle without protective equipment.
April 20, 1902
124 years ago
Key Figures & Places
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