Artificial radioactive element m.p. 1340±40 ºC; 2444±72 ºF b.p. ? density calculated 13.51 g/cc; 843.40 pound/cubic foot	memory peg
	1944 Glenn T. Seaborg and co-workers, Chicago, Ill., USA
	Marie Curie née Skłodowska (1867-1934) & Pierre Curie (1859-1906)

First prepared in 1944 by Glenn T. Seaborg (1912-1999), Ralph A. James, and Albert Ghiorso working at the Manhattan Project at the wartime Metallurgical Laboratory in Chicago by bombardment of Plutonium with Helium ions. About the naming, Glenn Seaborg wrote in 1994:

"Thus element 95 would be chemically similar to the lanthanide element europium (63) and element 96 would be chemically similar to gadolinium (64). Using this concept, in 1944 and 1945 we synthesized and chemically identified elements 95 and 96, by analogy with their rare earth homologues, europium (element 63) and gadolinium (element 64). The new elements were subsequently named americium (95) and curium (96)." (note)

In his autobiography, Seaborg says about the naming of Americium and Curium (note):

At a meeting of the Heavy Isotopes Group at the Metallurgical Laboratory on March 5, 1946, I suggested that 95 and 96 be named "americium" and "curium" by analogy to the naming of their lanthanide homologs "europium" and "gadolinium." It was also pointed out that the +2 state of element 96 would be "cur-ious," but I replied that this oxidation state was not expected to exist.

Thus the element is named after the Curies.
Marie Curie née Skłodowska (1867-1934), Polish scientist, who investigated radioactivity, and with her husband Pierre Curie (1859-1906) discovered Radium. They worked on radioactivity and in 1898 she reported the possible existence of a new, powerfully radioactive element in pitchblende ores. Her husband abandoned his own researces to assist her and discovered the radioactive elements Polonium and Radium in the pure state in 1902.
They both refused to take out a patent on their discoveries, and were jointly awarded the Davy Medal (1903) and the Nobel prize for physics (1903 with Becquerel, "in recognition of the extraordinary services they have rendered by their joint researches on the radiation phenomena discovered by Professor Henri Becquerel"). In 1904 Pierre was appointed to a chair in physics at the Sorbonne, and on his death in a street accident was succeeded by his wife. She wrote a Treatise on Radioactivity in 1910, and was awarded the Nobel Prize for Chemistry 1911. She died a victim of the radiation among which she had worked in her laboratory.

The chemical symbol for Curium is Cm, chosen because "m" is the initial of Marie Curie.

False transuranic elements (#93-97)

Element #96 has got in 1934-38 the preliminary name Eka-Platinum by Otto Hahn, Lise Meitner and Fritz Strassmann in Germany, who thought they had found traces of several transuranium elements. In December of 1938, Hahn and Strassman found out that these radioactivities were not due to transuranium elements but were due to fission products. According to the Periodic Table of that time, without the Actinide series, element #96 is below Platinium (#78). According to the present Table, Eka-Platinum would be #110.

Several Slavic languages, and el, ja, he seem to have the English pronounciation of the name Curium transcribed, since the name Curie, pronounced in French, does not start with "kyoo" but with "kuh" [correct phonetic symbols to be added].

Further reading:

• Mary Elvira Weeks, Discovery of the Elements, comp. rev. by Heny M. Leicester (Easton, Pa.: Journal of Chemical Education, 1968), pp. 846-848.
• Marie Curie and the Science of Radioactivity, On-line Exhibition
  
• Glenn T. Seaborg, Ralph A. James, & Albert Ghiorso, The New Element Curium (Atomic Number 96). DOE-report. January 1948. (Full text in PDF available on-line).
• Earl K. Hyde & Glenn T. Seaborg, Transurane : Teil A 1, I: Die Elemente. Gmelins Handbuch der anorganische Chemie, Ergänzungswerk zur 8. Aufl.; Band 7a. Weinheim/Bergstrasse: Chemie, 1973.
• Glenn T. Seaborg, "My Romance with the Transuranium Elements" R&D Innovator 3, 12 (Dec. 1994). (on-line)