# @wild_history_uk on Instagram

- **Type:** Video
- **Original URL:** https://www.instagram.com/p/DV8JE1mCFah
- **Gondola URL:** https://gondola.cc/posts/60227156-wild-history-uk-instagram
- **Thumbnail:** https://img.gondola.cc/tr:w-,h-,fo-auto/postThumbnails/c026eba54d.jpg
- **Posted:** 2026-03-16T09:10:01.000+00:00
- **Account Owner:** Wild History Shocking Stories From the Past (@wild_history_uk) — https://gondola.cc/wild_history_uk

## Caption

Paris, 1903. This is Marie. She’s thirty-six years old. And her hands glow in the dark.
Marie Curie just became the first woman to win a Nobel Prize. She discovered radium and polonium—elements that changed science forever.
She did it in a freezing shed with a dirt floor. No funding. No laboratory. The University of Paris wouldn’t give a woman proper facilities.
The work:
	∙	Processed tons of pitchblende ore by hand
	∙	Stirred boiling vats for hours
	∙	Isolated radioactive elements one gram at a time
	∙	Her hands were burned and scarred
	∙	They glowed green at night from radiation
She didn’t know it was killing her.
The radiation destroyed her bone marrow. Her blood cells. Her organs. Slowly. Over decades.
She won a second Nobel Prize in 1911—the first person ever to win twice.
She revolutionized medicine:
	∙	Cancer treatment
	∙	X-rays
	∙	Saved millions of lives
And it killed her. In 1934, age sixty-six. Aplastic anemia from radiation exposure.
Her notebooks are still radioactive. They’ll remain deadly for 1,500 years.
Paris, 1903. When a woman changed science forever—and died from her own discovery.
This is Part 1 of “Women Who Changed the World”—when breaking barriers meant ultimate sacrifice. #MarieCurie #WomenInScience #NobelPrize #RadiationPoisoning #WomenWhoChangedTheWorld

## Stats

- **Views:** 6,696
- **Likes:** 1,034
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- **Comments:** 13

## Tags

mariecurie, radiationpoisoning, nobelprize, womenwhochangedtheworld, womeninscience

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