In 1891, Marie Curie enrolled in the Sorbonne, two days before her 24th birthday. She has been out of school for 5 years, is now in a foreign country (France instead of her homeland of Poland), has barely enough money to survive, and even faints from hunger on at least one occasion in the classroom. Yet she eventually graduated at the top of her class. Then on this same day in 5 Nov 1906, she delivered her first lecture at the Sorbonne as the first female physics teacher in the school's history. Madame Curie: A Biography, by Eve Curie. - book suggestion.