·        She was the first to use the term radioactivity for this phenomenon.

·        She was the first woman in Europe to receive her doctorate of science.

·        In 1903, she became the first woman to win a Nobel Prize for Physics. The award, jointly awarded to Curie, her husband Pierre, and Henri Becquerel, was for the discovery of radioactivity.

·        She was also the first female lecturer, professor and head of Laboratory at the Sorbonne University in Paris (1906).

·        In 1911, she won an unprecedented second Nobel Prize (this time in chemistry) for her discovery and isolation of pure radium and radium components. She was the first person ever to receive two Nobel Prizes.

·        She was the first mother-Nobel Prize Laureate of daughter-Nobel Prize Laureate. Her oldest daughter Irene Joliot-Curie also won a Nobel Prize for Chemistry (1935).

·        She is the first woman which has been laid to rest under the famous dome of the Pantheon in Paris for her own merits.

·        She received 15 gold medals, 19 degrees, and other honors.