Polonium was discovered in 1898 by Marie Curie while she was doing experiments with pitchblend, a radioactive uranium ore. She noticed that her sample of uranium-bearing pitchblend was more radioactive that uranium alone could make it. From this she concluded that there must be another, highly radioactive element present in a small amount. In order for this to be accepted by the scientists of her day she had to isolate and have a reasonable amount of the element. She named what she discovered Radium. In the samples she got from a mine in Bohemia she observed that there was another substance even more radioactive than radium present. This became Polonium (also called radium F). It is called Polonium after Marie's home country, Poland. In 1911 she was given the Nobel Peace Prize for isolating radium. Unfortunately, all her work with radioactive substances led to her early death.