Historical Figure
Irene Joliot-Curie
b. 1897
French chemist and physicist (1897–1956)
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Biography
Irène Joliot-Curie was a French chemist and physicist who received the 1935 Nobel Prize in Chemistry with her husband, Frédéric Joliot-Curie, for their discovery of induced radioactivity. They were the second married couple, after her parents, to win the Nobel Prize, adding to the Curie family legacy of five Nobel Prizes. This made the Curies the family with the most Nobel laureates to date.
Timeline
The story of Irene Joliot-Curie, told in moments.
Operated mobile X-ray units near the front lines during WWI. She was 17. Her mother had designed the vehicles. Irene ran them under artillery fire.
Married Frederic Joliot. They both took the hyphenated name Joliot-Curie. Her mother disapproved of the match. The couple went on to share a Nobel Prize.
Won the Nobel Prize in Chemistry with Frederic for discovering artificial radioactivity. She and her mother remain the only parent-child pair to both win Nobel Prizes.
Died of leukemia at 58. Caused by decades of radiation exposure. The same radiation that killed her mother. She spent her life studying the thing that was killing her.
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