Welcome to the History Tricks, where any resemblance to a boring old history lesson is purely coincidental.

Hello, and welcome to the show. This is part two of our coverage of Marie Curie.

Obviously, listening to part one might be pretty critical to understanding this half, but just as a refresher, here's where we are so far.

Marie Skladowska was born and grew up in Poland under oppressive Russian rule.

She got an education in France, met and married fellow scientist Pierre Curie, had two daughters, discovered two elements, and won a Nobel Prize.

That's a really quick, nice wrap up.

It's not a song like last time, sorry.

I know. Here's the funny thing. I thought I was going to surprise you and write the second verse. There's no way.

No way.

That's funny.

So we are starting back up after the sudden accidental death of Pierre Curie.

So understandably Marie is bereft.

Bereft. Even a couple days after his death, she did try to go back to the lab, you know, maybe work because the answer immersed yourself in being busy.

And I think it was probably too soon.

She wrote in her journal like she was writing to Pierre, and she said the laboratory had an infinite sadness and seemed like a desert.

Oh, I know. Now you have to remember, she had a lifetime struggle with situational depression.

So even just getting out of bed and having the wherewithal to think, okay, I'm going to write it out.

You know, like now a lot of women work through their grief with blogs.

This is kind of the same thing. And she did it through her journal again. She began it, dear Pierre, you know, like a letter to him, like you said, and just having the thought to do that.

It's quite remarkable. So she was having trouble in the lab because she kept looking around thinking it's unreal and he's just going to walk back in.

And the house was the same way. Everywhere she looked in the house, she just felt like he's going to come right through the door.

And so to that end, she decided she needed to move houses after what I assume is a very emotional conversation with her father-in-law.

...