Radium was discovered by Marie Skłodowska-Curie and her husband Pierre Curie in 1898. They discovered it while studying the mineral pitchblende (uraninite) and found that the remaining material, after removing uranium, was still radioactive. They isolated radium compounds and announced their discovery in December 1898. The name "radium" comes from the Latin word for "ray," reflecting its emission of energy in the form of rays.
The Curies successfully isolated radium salts by 1902, and by 1910, Marie Curie isolated pure radium metal. Their work on radioactivity, including the discovery of radium, earned them the 1903 Nobel Prize in Physics alongside Henri Becquerel.
