December 26, 1898
1898-12-26 12:00 UTC
Held by The Museum. Not for sale.
Radium is announced
Marie and Pierre Curie report a new, intensely radioactive element to the French Academy of Sciences.Source ↗
What happened in this minute
Working in a converted shed, the Curies processed tonnes of pitchblende residue to isolate traces of a substance millions of times more active than uranium, and named it radium.
The discovery opened atomic physics and medical radiotherapy, and it killed its discoverer. Marie Curie died of aplastic anaemia in 1934; her notebooks are still radioactive.
The announcement date is documented; the hour is not, so this entry records a midday UTC marker.
Questions and answers
- Who discovered radium?
- Marie and Pierre Curie, working with Gustave Bémont, announced it to the French Academy of Sciences in December 1898.
- Why did it matter?
- It established radioactivity as a property of atoms, opened the path to nuclear physics, and led directly to radiotherapy.
- Was it dangerous?
- Yes. The health effects were unknown at the time, and Marie Curie's later illness is attributed to prolonged exposure.