Marie and Pierre Curie’s remains were transferred to the Panthéon in 1995.
The transfer took place six decades after Marie Curie died in 1934 and nearly nine decades after Pierre Curie died in 1906. Before the move, both were buried at the cemetery in Sceaux, south of Paris. French President François Mitterrand authorized their transfer to the Panthéon, France’s national mausoleum for distinguished citizens.
The ceremony made Marie Curie the first woman to be interred in the Panthéon on her own merits. Sophie Berthelot had entered earlier, but she was interred alongside her husband, chemist Marcellin Berthelot. Marie and Pierre’s shared scientific achievements, especially their research on radioactivity and the discovery of polonium and radium, were the reason for their recognition.
Because Marie and Pierre’s remains were radioactive, the coffins were sealed with protective lead lining. Their legacy also continued inside the Panthéon: their daughter Irène Joliot-Curie later won the Nobel Prize in Chemistry, extending the family’s extraordinary scientific history.