Who was the first woman to win a Nobel Prize?

Marie Curie won the Nobel Prize in Physics in 1903, shared with her husband Pierre and with Henri Becquerel, for work on radioactivity, a term she coined. The nomination originally named only the men, and Pierre insisted her contribution be recognised. Her research had shown that the radiation from uranium came from the atom itself rather than from any chemical arrangement, which pointed towards a structure inside the atom at a time when atoms were assumed to be indivisible. She and Pierre then processed tonnes of pitchblende by hand to isolate two new elements, polonium and radium, and it was that chemical work that brought her a second Nobel, in Chemistry, in 1911, making her the first person of either sex to win in two different sciences. She died of an illness almost certainly caused by long exposure to the materials she studied.

Curie's daughter Irene later won a Nobel Prize in Chemistry as well.