In a drafty shed in Paris, once used as a dissecting room, Marie and Pierre Curie huddled over a workbench late one night.

They had already spent months in the makeshift laboratory, stirring and boiling large cauldrons of crushed pitch-blend

ore in search of a new element.

The conditions were primitive.

A leaky glass roof hung above them, while they used an old iron stove to fight off the cold.

But no matter the conditions, the curies were dedicated.

And at last, their labor paid off.

Pierre closed the shutters and turned down the lantern.

The workshop fell into darkness,

and an unusual sight materialized.

There, in Marie's hands,

the substance gleamed with a glowing blue light,

all on its own.

In that moment, it was just the two of them and this ghostly luminescence.

The Curies realized they had indeed discovered a new element hidden within the pitchblende.

They named it radium, after the Latin word for ray, in honor of the mysterious rays of energy it admitted.

Here was matter that glowed of its own accord, a substance seemingly alive with light in the darkness.

The sight of radium's eerie glow transformed their ramshackle lab into a scene from a dream.

Night after night, exhausted but exhilarated, the couple stayed past midnight to marble at the tiny specks of light.

The laboratory became their second home, even eating their meals amid their scientific and chemical equipment, rather than interrupt their thrilling work.

In those early days, radium seemed a benevolent miracle,

a scientific fairy tale come true.

...