Who became the first woman to win a Nobel Prize?

Marie Curie became the first woman to win a Nobel Prize when she shared the 1903 Nobel Prize in Physics.

She received the award with her husband, Pierre Curie, and physicist Henri Becquerel for research into radiation. Becquerel had discovered spontaneous radioactivity, while the Curies investigated the phenomenon and developed important methods for studying radioactive substances.

Marie Curie later won the 1911 Nobel Prize in Chemistry for discovering the elements polonium and radium and for advancing the study of radium. She remains the only person to win Nobel Prizes in two different scientific categories.

Her daughter Irène Joliot-Curie also won a Nobel Prize, in Chemistry in 1935. Marie Curie was born Maria Skłodowska in Warsaw and conducted much of her scientific career in France.