History of chemistry element among the fractions that resulted. Working with the mineral pitchblende, the pair discovered a new radioactive element in 1898. They named the element polonium, after Marie's native country of Poland. On December 21, 1898, the Curies detected the presence of another radioactive material in the pitchblende. They presented this finding to the French Academy of Sciences on December 26, proposing that the new element be called radium. The Curies then went to work isolating polonium and radium from naturally occurring compounds to prove that they were new elements. In 1902, the Curies announced that they had produced a decigram
Polonium isotope. The DoE factsheet submitted for this experiment reported no follow up on these subjects. It has also been suggested that Irène Joliot-Curie was the first person to die from the radiation effects of polonium. She was accidentally exposed to polonium in 1946 when a sealed capsule of the element exploded on her laboratory bench. In 1956, she died from leukemia. According to the 2008 book "The Bomb in the Basement", several deaths in Israel during 1957–1969 were caused by Po. A leak was discovered at a Weizmann Institute laboratory in 1957. Traces of Po were found on the hands