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3,000 | In addition to active duty in the U.S. Air Force, Air Force Reserve Command, and Air National Guard units, the aircraft is also used by the U.S. Air Force Thunderbirds aerial demonstration team, and as an adversary/aggressor aircraft by the United States Navy. The F-16 has also been procured to serve in the air forces ... | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki?curid=11642 |
3,001 | Experiences in the Vietnam War revealed the need for air superiority fighters and better air-to-air training for fighter pilots. Based on his experiences in the Korean War and as a fighter tactics instructor in the early 1960s, Colonel John Boyd with mathematician Thomas Christie developed the energy–maneuverability th... | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki?curid=11642 |
3,002 | Air Force F-X proponents remained hostile to the concept because they perceived it as a threat to the F-15 program, but the USAF's leadership understood that its budget would not allow it to purchase enough F-15 aircraft to satisfy all of its missions. The Advanced Day Fighter concept, renamed "F-XX", gained civilian p... | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki?curid=11642 |
3,003 | Five companies responded, and in 1972, the Air Staff selected General Dynamics' Model 401 and Northrop's P-600 for the follow-on prototype development and testing phase. GD and Northrop were awarded contracts worth $37.9 million and $39.8 million to produce the YF-16 and YF-17, respectively, with the first flights of b... | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki?curid=11642 |
3,004 | The YF-16 was developed by a team of General Dynamics engineers led by Robert H. Widmer. The first YF-16 was rolled out on 13 December 1973. Its 90-minute maiden flight was made at the Air Force Flight Test Center at Edwards AFB, California, on 2 February 1974. Its actual first flight occurred accidentally during a hig... | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki?curid=11642 |
3,005 | Increased interest turned the LWF into a serious acquisition program. North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO) allies Belgium, Denmark, the Netherlands, and Norway were seeking to replace their F-104G Starfighter fighter-bombers. In early 1974, they reached an agreement with the U.S. that if the USAF ordered the LWF w... | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki?curid=11642 |
3,006 | To reflect this serious intent to procure a new fighter-bomber, the LWF program was rolled into a new Air Combat Fighter (ACF) competition in an announcement by U.S. Secretary of Defense James R. Schlesinger in April 1974. The ACF would not be a pure fighter, but multi-role, and Schlesinger made it clear that any ACF o... | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki?curid=11642 |
3,007 | On 13 January 1975, Secretary of the Air Force John L. McLucas announced the YF-16 as the winner of the ACF competition. The chief reasons given by the secretary were the YF-16's lower operating costs, greater range, and maneuver performance that was "significantly better" than that of the YF-17, especially at superson... | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki?curid=11642 |
3,008 | The U.S. Air Force initially ordered 15 full-scale development (FSD) aircraft (11 single-seat and four two-seat models) for its flight test program, but was reduced to eight (six F-16A single-seaters and two F-16B two-seaters). The YF-16 design was altered for the production F-16. The fuselage was lengthened by , a lar... | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki?curid=11642 |
3,009 | The FSD F-16s were manufactured by General Dynamics in Fort Worth, Texas, at United States Air Force Plant 4 in late 1975; the first F-16A rolled out on 20 October 1976 and first flew on 8 December. The initial two-seat model achieved its first flight on 8 August 1977. The initial production-standard F-16A flew for the... | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki?curid=11642 |
3,010 | On 7 June 1975, the four European partners, now known as the European Participation Group, signed up for 348 aircraft at the Paris Air Show. This was split among the European Participation Air Forces (EPAF) as 116 for Belgium, 58 for Denmark, 102 for the Netherlands, and 72 for Norway. Two European production lines, on... | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki?curid=11642 |
3,011 | During the late 1980s and 1990s, Turkish Aerospace Industries (TAI) produced 232 Block 30/40/50 F-16s on a production line in Ankara under license for the Turkish Air Force. TAI also produced 46 Block 40s for Egypt in the mid-1990s and 30 Block 50s from 2010. Korean Aerospace Industries opened a production line for the... | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki?curid=11642 |
3,012 | One change made during production was augmented pitch control to avoid deep stall conditions at high angles of attack. The stall issue had been raised during development but had originally been discounted. Model tests of the YF-16 conducted by the Langley Research Center revealed a potential problem, but no other labor... | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki?curid=11642 |
3,013 | In the 1980s, the Multinational Staged Improvement Program (MSIP) was conducted to evolve the F-16's capabilities, mitigate risks during technology development, and ensure the aircraft's worth. The program upgraded the F-16 in three stages. The MSIP process permitted the quick introduction of new capabilities, at lower... | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki?curid=11642 |
3,014 | Lockheed won many contracts to upgrade foreign operators' F-16s. BAE Systems also offers various F-16 upgrades, receiving orders from South Korea, Oman, Turkey, and the US Air National Guard; BAE lost the South Korean contract because of a price breach in November 2014. In 2012, the USAF assigned the total upgrade cont... | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki?curid=11642 |
3,015 | In 2013, sequestration budget cuts cast doubt on the USAF's ability to complete the Combat Avionics Programmed Extension Suite (CAPES), a part of secondary programs such as Taiwan's F-16 upgrade. Air Combat Command's General Mike Hostage stated that if he only had money for a service life extension program (SLEP) or CA... | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki?curid=11642 |
3,016 | To make more room for assembly of its newer F-35 Lightning II fighter aircraft, Lockheed Martin moved the F-16 production from Fort Worth, Texas to its plant in Greenville, South Carolina. Lockheed delivered the last F-16 from Fort Worth to the Iraqi Air Force on 14 November 2017, ending 40 years of F-16 production the... | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki?curid=11642 |
3,017 | The F-16 is a single-engine, highly maneuverable, supersonic, multi-role tactical fighter aircraft. It is much smaller and lighter than its predecessors but uses advanced aerodynamics and avionics, including the first use of a relaxed static stability/fly-by-wire (RSS/FBW) flight control system, to achieve enhanced man... | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki?curid=11642 |
3,018 | The F-16 was designed to be relatively inexpensive to build and simpler to maintain than earlier-generation fighters. The airframe is built with about 80% aviation-grade aluminum alloys, 8% steel, 3% composites, and 1.5% titanium. The leading-edge flaps, stabilators, and ventral fins make use of bonded aluminum honeyco... | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki?curid=11642 |
3,019 | Although the LWF program called for a structural life of 4,000 flight hours, capable of achieving 7.33 "g" with 80% internal fuel; GD's engineers decided to design the F-16's airframe life for 8,000 hours and for 9-"g" maneuvers on full internal fuel. This proved advantageous when the aircraft's mission changed from so... | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki?curid=11642 |
3,020 | The F-16 has a cropped-delta wing incorporating wing-fuselage blending and forebody vortex-control strakes; a fixed-geometry, underslung air intake (with splitter plate) to the single turbofan jet engine; a conventional tri-plane empennage arrangement with all-moving horizontal "stabilator" tailplanes; a pair of ventra... | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki?curid=11642 |
3,021 | Aerodynamic studies in the 1960s demonstrated that the "vortex lift" phenomenon could be harnessed by highly swept wing configurations to reach higher angles of attack, using leading edge vortex flow off a slender lifting surface. As the F-16 was being optimized for high combat agility, GD's designers chose a slender c... | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki?curid=11642 |
3,022 | Early F-16s could be armed with up to six AIM-9 Sidewinder heat-seeking short-range air-to-air missiles (AAM) by employing rail launchers on each wingtip, as well as radar-guided AIM-7 Sparrow medium-range AAMs in a weapons mix. More recent versions support the AIM-120 AMRAAM, and US aircraft often mount that missile o... | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki?curid=11642 |
3,023 | The F-16 is the first production fighter aircraft intentionally designed to be slightly aerodynamically unstable, also known as relaxed static stability (RSS), to improve maneuverability. Most aircraft are designed with positive static stability, which induces aircraft to return to straight and level flight attitude if... | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki?curid=11642 |
3,024 | To counter the tendency to depart from controlled flight and avoid the need for constant trim inputs by the pilot, the F-16 has a quadruplex (four-channel) fly-by-wire (FBW) flight control system (FLCS). The flight control computer (FLCC) accepts pilot input from the stick and rudder controls and manipulates the contro... | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki?curid=11642 |
3,025 | The FLCC further incorporates limiters governing movement in the three main axes based on attitude, airspeed and angle of attack (AOA); these prevent control surfaces from inducing instability such as slips or skids, or a high AOA inducing a stall. The limiters also prevent maneuvers that would exert more than a 9 "g" ... | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki?curid=11642 |
3,026 | Unlike the YF-17, which had hydromechanical controls serving as a backup to the FBW, General Dynamics took the innovative step of eliminating mechanical linkages from the control stick and rudder pedals to the flight control surfaces. The F-16 is entirely reliant on its electrical systems to relay flight commands, inst... | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki?curid=11642 |
3,027 | A key feature of the F-16's cockpit is the exceptional field of view. The single-piece, bird-proof polycarbonate bubble canopy provides 360° all-round visibility, with a 40° look-down angle over the side of the aircraft, and 15° down over the nose (compared to the common 12–13° of preceding aircraft); the pilot's seat ... | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki?curid=11642 |
3,028 | The pilot flies primarily by means of an armrest-mounted side-stick controller (instead of a traditional center-mounted stick) and an engine throttle; conventional rudder pedals are also employed. To enhance the pilot's degree of control of the aircraft during high-"g" combat maneuvers, various switches and function co... | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki?curid=11642 |
3,029 | The F-16 has a head-up display (HUD), which projects visual flight and combat information in front of the pilot without obstructing the view; being able to keep their head "out of the cockpit" improves the pilot's situation awareness. Further flight and systems information are displayed on multi-function displays (MFD)... | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki?curid=11642 |
3,030 | The F-16A/B was originally equipped with the Westinghouse AN/APG-66 fire-control radar. Its slotted planar array antenna was designed to be compact to fit into the F-16's relatively small nose. In uplook mode, the APG-66 uses a low pulse-repetition frequency (PRF) for medium- and high-altitude target detection in a low... | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki?curid=11642 |
3,031 | The AN/APG-68, an evolution of the APG-66, was introduced with the F-16C/D Block 25. The APG-68 has greater range and resolution, as well as 25 operating modes, including ground-mapping, Doppler beam-sharpening, ground moving target indication, sea target, and track while scan (TWS) for up to 10 targets. The Block 40/4... | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki?curid=11642 |
3,032 | The F-16E/F is outfitted with Northrop Grumman's AN/APG-80 active electronically scanned array (AESA) radar. Northrop Grumman developed the latest AESA radar upgrade for the F-16 (selected for USAF and Taiwan's Republic of China Air Force F-16 upgrades), named the Scalable Agile Beam Radar (SABR) APG-83. In July 2007, ... | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki?curid=11642 |
3,033 | The initial powerplant selected for the single-engined F-16 was the Pratt & Whitney F100-PW-200 afterburning turbofan, a modified version of the F-15's F100-PW-100, rated at 23,830 lb (106.0 kN) thrust. During testing, the engine was found to be prone to compressor stalls and "rollbacks", wherein the engine's thrust wo... | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki?curid=11642 |
3,034 | The F100-PW-220/220E was the result of the USAF's Alternate Fighter Engine (AFE) program (colloquially known as "the Great Engine War"), which also saw the entry of General Electric as an F-16 engine provider. Its F110-GE-100 turbofan was limited by the original inlet to thrust of 25,735 lb (114.5 kN), the Modular Comm... | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki?curid=11642 |
3,035 | The Increased Performance Engine (IPE) program led to the 29,588 lb (131.6 kN) F110-GE-129 on the Block 50 and 29,160 lb (129.4 kN) F100-PW-229 on the Block 52. F-16s began flying with these IPE engines in the early 1990s. Altogether, of the 1,446 F-16C/Ds ordered by the USAF, 556 were fitted with F100-series engines a... | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki?curid=11642 |
3,036 | The F-16 is being used by the active duty USAF, Air Force Reserve, and Air National Guard units, the USAF aerial demonstration team, the U.S. Air Force Thunderbirds, and as an adversary-aggressor aircraft by the United States Navy at the Naval Strike and Air Warfare Center. | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki?curid=11642 |
3,037 | The U.S. Air Force, including the Air Force Reserve and the Air National Guard, flew the F-16 in combat during Operation Desert Storm in 1991 and in the Balkans later in the 1990s. F-16s also patrolled the no-fly zones in Iraq during Operations Northern Watch and Southern Watch and served during the War in Afghanistan ... | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki?curid=11642 |
3,038 | On 11 September 2001, two unarmed F-16s were launched in an attempt to ram and down United Airlines Flight 93 before it reached Washington D.C. during the September 11, 2001, terrorist attacks, but Flight 93 was brought down by the passengers first, so the F-16s were retasked to patrol the local airspace and later esco... | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki?curid=11642 |
3,039 | The F-16 had been scheduled to remain in service with the U.S. Air Force until 2025. Its replacement was planned to be the F-35A variant of the Lockheed Martin F-35 Lightning II, which is expected to gradually begin replacing several multi-role aircraft among the program's member nations. However, owing to delays in th... | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki?curid=11642 |
3,040 | The F-16's first air-to-air combat success was achieved by the Israeli Air Force (IAF) over the Bekaa Valley on 28 April 1981, against a Syrian Mi-8 helicopter, which was downed with cannon fire. On 7 June 1981, eight Israeli F-16s, escorted by six F-15s, executed Operation Opera, their first employment in a significan... | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki?curid=11642 |
3,041 | The following year, during the 1982 Lebanon War Israeli F-16s engaged Syrian aircraft in one of the largest air battles involving jet aircraft, which began on 9 June and continued for two more days. Israeli Air Force F-16s were credited with 44 air-to-air kills during the conflict. | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki?curid=11642 |
3,042 | In January 2000, Israel completed a purchase of 102 new F-16I aircraft in a deal totaling $4.5 billion. F-16s were also used in their ground-attack role for strikes against targets in Lebanon. IAF F-16s participated in the 2006 Lebanon War and the 2008–09 Gaza War. During and after the 2006 Lebanon war, IAF F-16s shot ... | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki?curid=11642 |
3,043 | On 10 February 2018, an Israeli Air Force F-16I was shot down in northern Israel when it was hit by a relatively old model S-200 (NATO name SA-5 Gammon) surface-to-air missile of the Syrian Air Defense Force. The pilot and navigator ejected safely in Israeli territory. The F-16I was part of a bombing mission against Sy... | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki?curid=11642 |
3,044 | During the Soviet–Afghan War, PAF F-16As shot down between 20-30 Soviet & Afghan warplanes however the political situation resulted in PAF officially recognising only 9 kills which were made inside Pakistani airspace. | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki?curid=11642 |
3,045 | From May 1986 to January 1989, PAF F-16s from the Tail Choppers and Griffin squadrons using mostly AIM-9 Sidewinder missiles, shot down four Afghan Su-22s, two MiG-23s, one Su-25, and one An-26s. Most of these kills were by missiles, but at least one, a Su-22, was destroyed by cannon fire. One F-16 was lost in these ba... | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki?curid=11642 |
3,046 | On 7 June 2002, a Pakistan Air Force F-16B Block 15 (S. No. 82-605) shot down an Indian Air Force unmanned aerial vehicle, an Israeli-made Searcher II, using an AIM-9L Sidewinder missile, during a night interception near Lahore | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki?curid=11642 |
3,047 | The Pakistan Air Force has used its F-16s in various foreign and internal military exercises, such as the "Indus Vipers" exercise in 2008 conducted jointly with Turkey. | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki?curid=11642 |
3,048 | Between May 2009 and , the PAF F-16 fleet flew more than 5,500 sorties in support of the Pakistan Army's operations against the Taliban insurgency in the FATA region of North-West Pakistan. More than 80% of the dropped munitions were laser-guided bombs. | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki?curid=11642 |
3,049 | On 27 February 2019, following a Pakistan air force airstrike in Kashmir, Pakistani officials said that two of its fighter jets shot down one MiG-21 and one Su-30MKI belonging to the Indian Air Force. Indian officials only confirmed the loss of one MiG-21 but denied losing any Su-30MKI in the clash. Additionally Indian... | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki?curid=11642 |
3,050 | The Turkish Air Force acquired its first F-16s in 1987. F-16s were later produced in Turkey under four phases of "Peace Onyx" programs. In 2015, they were upgraded to Block 50/52+ with CCIP by Turkish Aerospace Industries. Turkish F-16s are being fitted with indigenous AESA radars and EW suite called SPEWS-II. | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki?curid=11642 |
3,051 | On 18 June 1992, a Greek Mirage F-1 crashed during a dogfight with a Turkish F-16. On 8 February 1995, a Turkish F-16 crashed into the Aegean sea after being intercepted by Greek Mirage F1 fighters. | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki?curid=11642 |
3,052 | Turkish F-16s participated in the Bosnia Herzegovina and Kosovo since 1993 in support of United Nations resolutions. | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki?curid=11642 |
3,053 | On 8 October 1996, seven months after the escalation a Greek Mirage 2000 reportedly fired an R.550 Magic II missile and shot down a Turkish F-16D over the Aegean Sea near Chios island. The Turkish pilot died, while the co-pilot ejected and was rescued by Greek forces. In August 2012, after the downing of a RF-4E on the... | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki?curid=11642 |
3,054 | On 23 May 2006, two Greek F-16s intercepted a Turkish RF-4 reconnaissance aircraft and two F-16 escorts off the coast of the Greek island of Karpathos, within the Athens FIR. A mock dogfight ensued between the two sides, resulting in a midair collision between a Turkish F-16 and a Greek F-16. The Turkish pilot ejected ... | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki?curid=11642 |
3,055 | Turkey used its F-16s extensively in its conflict with Kurdish insurgents in southeastern parts of Turkey and Iraq. Turkey launched its first cross-border raid on 16 December 2007, a prelude to the 2008 Turkish incursion into northern Iraq, involving 50 fighters before Operation Sun. This was the first time Turkey had ... | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki?curid=11642 |
3,056 | During the Syrian Civil War, Turkish F-16s were tasked with airspace protection on the Syrian border. After the RF-4 downing in June 2012 Turkey changed its rules of engagement against Syrian aircraft, resulting in scrambles and downings of Syrian combat aircraft. On 16 September 2013, a Turkish Air Force F-16 shot dow... | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki?curid=11642 |
3,057 | On 1 March 2020, two Syrian Sukhoi Su-24s were shot down by Turkish Air Force F-16s using air-to-air missiles over Syria's Idlib Governorate. All four pilots safely ejected. On 3 March 2020, a Syrian Arab Army Air Force L-39 combat trainer was shot down by a Turkish F-16 over Syria's Idlib province. The pilot died. | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki?curid=11642 |
3,058 | As a part of Turkish F-16 modernization program new air to air missiles are being developed and tested for the aircraft. GÖKTUĞ program led by TUBITAK SAGE has presented two types of air to air missiles named as Bozdogan (Merlin) and Gokdogan (Peregrine). While Bozdogan has been categorized as a Within Visual Range Air... | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki?curid=11642 |
3,059 | On 16 February 2015, Egyptian F-16s struck weapons caches and training camps of the Islamic State (ISIS) in Libya in retaliation for the murder of 21 Egyptian Coptic Christian construction workers by masked militants affiliated with ISIS. The air strikes killed 64 ISIS fighters, including three leaders in Derna and Sir... | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki?curid=11642 |
3,060 | The Royal Netherlands Air Force, Belgian Air Force, Royal Danish Air Force, Royal Norwegian Air Force, and Venezuela Air Force have flown the F-16 on combat missions. | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki?curid=11642 |
3,061 | A Yugoslavian MiG-29 was shot down by a Dutch F-16AM during the Kosovo War in 1999. Belgian and Danish F-16s also participated in joint operations over Kosovo during the war. Dutch, Belgian, Danish, and Norwegian F-16s were deployed during the 2011 intervention in Libya and in Afghanistan. In Libya, Norwegian F-16s dro... | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki?curid=11642 |
3,062 | The Royal Moroccan Air Force and the Royal Bahraini Air Force each lost a single F-16C, both shot down by Houthis anti aircraft fire during the Saudi Arabian-led intervention in Yemen, respectively on 11 May 2015 and on 30 December 2015. | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki?curid=11642 |
3,063 | In late March 2018, Croatia announced its intention to purchase 12 used Israeli F-16C/D "Barak"/"Brakeet" jets, pending U.S. approval. Acquiring these F-16s would allow Croatia to retire its aging MiG-21s. | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki?curid=11642 |
3,064 | On 11 July 2018, Slovakia's government approved the purchase of 14 F-16s Block 70/72 to replace its aging fleet of Soviet-made MiG-29s. A contract was signed on 12 December 2018 in Bratislava. | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki?curid=11642 |
3,065 | F-16 models are denoted by increasing block numbers to denote upgrades. The blocks cover both single- and two-seat versions. A variety of software, hardware, systems, weapons compatibility, and structural enhancements have been instituted over the years to gradually upgrade production models and retrofit delivered airc... | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki?curid=11642 |
3,066 | While many F-16s were produced according to these block designs, there have been many other variants with significant changes, usually because of modification programs. Other changes have resulted in role-specialization, such as the close air support and reconnaissance variants. Several models were also developed to te... | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki?curid=11642 |
3,067 | Marie Salomea Skłodowska–Curie ( , , ; born Maria Salomea Skłodowska, ; 7 November 1867 – 4 July 1934) was a Polish and naturalized-French physicist and chemist who conducted pioneering research on radioactivity. She was the first woman to win a Nobel Prize, the first person and the only woman to win a Nobel Prize twic... | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki?curid=20408 |
3,068 | She was born in Warsaw, in what was then the Kingdom of Poland, part of the Russian Empire. She studied at Warsaw's clandestine Flying University and began her practical scientific training in Warsaw. In 1891, aged 24, she followed her elder sister Bronisława to study in Paris, where she earned her higher degrees and c... | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki?curid=20408 |
3,069 | Under her direction, the world's first studies were conducted into the treatment of neoplasms by the use of radioactive isotopes. In 1920 she founded the Curie Institute in Paris, and in 1932 the Curie Institute in Warsaw; both remain major centres of medical research. During World War I she developed mobile radiograph... | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki?curid=20408 |
3,070 | While a French citizen, Marie Skłodowska Curie, who used both surnames, never lost her sense of Polish identity. She taught her daughters the Polish language and took them on visits to Poland. She named the first chemical element she discovered "polonium", after her native country. | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki?curid=20408 |
3,071 | Marie Curie died in 1934, aged 66, at the sanatorium in Passy (), France, of aplastic anemia from exposure to radiation in the course of her scientific research and in the course of her radiological work at field hospitals during World War I. In addition to her Nobel Prizes, she has received numerous other honours and ... | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki?curid=20408 |
3,072 | Maria Skłodowska was born in Warsaw, in Congress Poland in the Russian Empire, on 7 November 1867, the fifth and youngest child of well-known teachers Bronisława, "née" Boguska, and Władysław Skłodowski. The elder siblings of Maria (nicknamed "Mania") were Zofia (born 1862, nicknamed "Zosia"), (born 1863, nicknamed "Jó... | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki?curid=20408 |
3,073 | On both the paternal and maternal sides, the family had lost their property and fortunes through patriotic involvements in Polish national uprisings aimed at restoring Poland's independence (the most recent had been the January Uprising of 1863–65). This condemned the subsequent generation, including Maria and her elde... | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki?curid=20408 |
3,074 | Władysław Skłodowski taught mathematics and physics, subjects that Maria was to pursue, and was also director of two Warsaw "gymnasia" (secondary schools) for boys. After Russian authorities eliminated laboratory instruction from the Polish schools, he brought much of the laboratory equipment home and instructed his ch... | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki?curid=20408 |
3,075 | When she was ten years old, Maria began attending the boarding school of J. Sikorska; next, she attended a "gymnasium" for girls, from which she graduated on 12 June 1883 with a gold medal. After a collapse, possibly due to depression, she spent the following year in the countryside with relatives of her father, and th... | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki?curid=20408 |
3,076 | Maria made an agreement with her sister, Bronisława, that she would give her financial assistance during Bronisława's medical studies in Paris, in exchange for similar assistance two years later. In connection with this, Maria took a position first as a home tutor in Warsaw, then for two years as a governess in Szczuki... | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki?curid=20408 |
3,077 | At the beginning of 1890, Bronisława—who a few months earlier had married Kazimierz Dłuski, a Polish physician and social and political activist—invited Maria to join them in Paris. Maria declined because she could not afford the university tuition; it would take her a year and a half longer to gather the necessary fun... | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki?curid=20408 |
3,078 | In late 1891, she left Poland for France. In Paris, Maria (or Marie, as she would be known in France) briefly found shelter with her sister and brother-in-law before renting a garret closer to the university, in the Latin Quarter, and proceeding with her studies of physics, chemistry, and mathematics at the University ... | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki?curid=20408 |
3,079 | Skłodowska had begun her scientific career in Paris with an investigation of the magnetic properties of various steels, commissioned by the Society for the Encouragement of National Industry. That same year, Pierre Curie entered her life: it was their mutual interest in natural sciences that drew them together. Pierre ... | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki?curid=20408 |
3,080 | Their mutual passion for science brought them increasingly closer, and they began to develop feelings for one another. Eventually, Pierre proposed marriage, but at first Skłodowska did not accept as she was still planning to go back to her native country. Curie, however, declared that he was ready to move with her to P... | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki?curid=20408 |
3,081 | On 26 July 1895, they were married in Sceaux; neither wanted a religious service. Curie's dark blue outfit, worn instead of a bridal gown, would serve her for many years as a laboratory outfit. They shared two pastimes: long bicycle trips and journeys abroad, which brought them even closer. In Pierre, Marie had found a... | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki?curid=20408 |
3,082 | In 1895, Wilhelm Röntgen discovered the existence of X-rays, though the mechanism behind their production was not yet understood. In 1896, Henri Becquerel discovered that uranium salts emitted rays that resembled X-rays in their penetrating power. He demonstrated that this radiation, unlike phosphorescence, did not dep... | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki?curid=20408 |
3,083 | She used an innovative technique to investigate samples. Fifteen years earlier, her husband and his brother had developed a version of the electrometer, a sensitive device for measuring electric charge. Using her husband's electrometer, she discovered that uranium rays caused the air around a sample to conduct electric... | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki?curid=20408 |
3,084 | In 1897, her daughter Irène was born. To support her family, Curie began teaching at the École Normale Supérieure. The Curies did not have a dedicated laboratory; most of their research was carried out in a converted shed next to ESPCI. The shed, formerly a medical school dissecting room, was poorly ventilated and not ... | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki?curid=20408 |
3,085 | Curie's systematic studies included two uranium minerals, pitchblende and torbernite (also known as chalcolite). Her electrometer showed that pitchblende was four times as active as uranium itself, and chalcolite twice as active. She concluded that, if her earlier results relating the quantity of uranium to its activit... | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki?curid=20408 |
3,086 | She was acutely aware of the importance of promptly publishing her discoveries and thus establishing her priority. Had not Becquerel, two years earlier, presented his discovery to the "Académie des Sciences" the day after he made it, credit for the discovery of radioactivity (and even a Nobel Prize), would instead have... | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki?curid=20408 |
3,087 | At that time, no one else in the world of physics had noticed what Curie recorded in a sentence of her paper, describing how much greater were the activities of pitchblende and chalcolite than uranium itself: "The fact is very remarkable, and leads to the belief that these minerals may contain an element which is much ... | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki?curid=20408 |
3,088 | In July 1898, Curie and her husband published a joint paper announcing the existence of an element they named "polonium", in honour of her native Poland, which would for another twenty years remain partitioned among three empires (Russian, Austrian, and Prussian). On 26 December 1898, the Curies announced the existence... | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki?curid=20408 |
3,089 | To prove their discoveries beyond any doubt, the Curies sought to isolate polonium and radium in pure form. Pitchblende is a complex mineral; the chemical separation of its constituents was an arduous task. The discovery of polonium had been relatively easy; chemically it resembles the element bismuth, and polonium was... | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki?curid=20408 |
3,090 | Between 1898 and 1902, the Curies published, jointly or separately, a total of 32 scientific papers, including one that announced that, when exposed to radium, diseased, tumour-forming cells were destroyed faster than healthy cells. | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki?curid=20408 |
3,091 | In 1900, Curie became the first woman faculty member at the École Normale Supérieure and her husband joined the faculty of the University of Paris. In 1902 she visited Poland on the occasion of her father's death. | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki?curid=20408 |
3,092 | In June 1903, supervised by Gabriel Lippmann, Curie was awarded her doctorate from the University of Paris. That month the couple were invited to the Royal Institution in London to give a speech on radioactivity; being a woman, she was prevented from speaking, and Pierre Curie alone was allowed to. Meanwhile, a new ind... | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki?curid=20408 |
3,093 | In December 1903 the Royal Swedish Academy of Sciences awarded Pierre Curie, Marie Curie, and Henri Becquerel the Nobel Prize in Physics, "in recognition of the extraordinary services they have rendered by their joint researches on the radiation phenomena discovered by Professor Henri Becquerel." At first the committee... | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki?curid=20408 |
3,094 | Curie and her husband declined to go to Stockholm to receive the prize in person; they were too busy with their work, and Pierre Curie, who disliked public ceremonies, was feeling increasingly ill. As Nobel laureates were required to deliver a lecture, the Curies finally undertook the trip in 1905. The award money allo... | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki?curid=20408 |
3,095 | In December 1904, Curie gave birth to their second daughter, Ève. She hired Polish governesses to teach her daughters her native language, and sent or took them on visits to Poland. | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki?curid=20408 |
3,096 | On 19 April 1906, Pierre Curie was killed in a road accident. Walking across the Rue Dauphine in heavy rain, he was struck by a horse-drawn vehicle and fell under its wheels, fracturing his skull and killing him instantly. Curie was devastated by her husband's death. On 13 May 1906 the physics department of the Univers... | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki?curid=20408 |
3,097 | Curie's quest to create a new laboratory did not end with the University of Paris, however. In her later years, she headed the Radium Institute ("Institut du radium", now Curie Institute, "Institut Curie"), a radioactivity laboratory created for her by the Pasteur Institute and the University of Paris. The initiative f... | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki?curid=20408 |
3,098 | In 1910 Curie succeeded in isolating radium; she also defined an international standard for radioactive emissions that was eventually named for her and Pierre: the curie. Nevertheless, in 1911 the French Academy of Sciences failed, by one or two votes, to elect her to membership in the academy. Elected instead was Édou... | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki?curid=20408 |
3,099 | Despite Curie's fame as a scientist working for France, the public's attitude tended toward xenophobia—the same that had led to the Dreyfus affair—which also fuelled false speculation that Curie was Jewish. During the French Academy of Sciences elections, she was vilified by the right-wing press as a foreigner and athe... | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki?curid=20408 |
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