#OTD in 1903, Marie Curie defended her doctoral thesis in the physical sciences, entitled "Recherches sur les substances radioactives", before the Faculty of Science at the University of Paris; she was awarded a "very honourable" distinction.
She was the first woman to win a Nobel Prize, the first person to win a Nobel Prize twice, and the only person to win a Nobel Prize in two scientific fields. via @Wikipedia
Maria Skłodowska-Curie, ca. 1898. Portrait of Maria Skłodowska-Curie (November 7, 1867 – July 4, 1934), sometime prior to 1907. Curie and her husband Pierre shared a Nobel Prize in Physics in 1903. Working together, she and her husband isolated Polonium. Pierre died in 1907, but Marie continued her work, namely with Radium, and received a Nobel Prize in Chemistry in 1911. Her death is mainly attributed to excess exposure to radiation. via @wikipedia
@gutenberg_org@Wikipedia funny how women are constantly demonstrating how full of shit misogynists are. It’s almost like women aren’t less than because of their gender.
The Nobel Committee initially intended to pass her over and award the prize to Henri Becquerel and Pierre Curie (her husband), but both of them protested, even going so far as to threaten to refuse the prize if she were not honored.
I suspect that Otto Hahn might have done the same for Lise Meitner, if he had not been held incommunicado in a British prison camp when the 1946 prizes were being awarded.
Of course, Franklin had died by the time the Nobel Prize for DNA was given out, and Nobel Prizes are awarded exclusively to the living. That doesn't excuse Watson and Crick (nor Pauling) from eliding her contributions, but we can't necessarily know what the Nobel Committee would have done if she had still been alive.
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