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Events on Monday 26 December 1898 1
1898Curies discover radium and poloniumMarie and Pierre Curie identify two new radioactive elementsWorking with pitchblende ore, Marie and Pierre Curie announced the discovery of polonium on 18 July 1898 and radium on 26 December 1898. Their work established radioactivity as a property of atoms rather than a chemical reaction, launching the field of nuclear physics. Marie Curie later won Nobel Prizes in both physics and chemistry for this research.