The Pennines /ˈpɛnaɪnz/ are a low-rising mountain range, separating the North West of England from Yorkshire and the North East.

Often described as the "backbone of England", they form a more-or-less continuous range stretching from the Peak District in Derbyshire, around the northern and eastern edges of Greater Manchester, through the Yorkshire Dales past the Cumbrian Fells to the Cheviot Hills on the Anglo-Scottish border. North of the Aire Gap, the Pennines give out a western spur into Lancashire, the Bowland Fells, and south of the gap is a similar spur, comprising the Rossendale Fells and West Pennine Moors.

Although the above is a common definition, the Cheviot Hills are not, strictly speaking, part of the Pennines, being separated by the Tyne Gap and the Whin Sill, along which run the A69 and Hadrian's Wall, but because the Pennine Way crosses them they are often treated as such. Conversely, although the southern end of the Pennines is commonly said to be somewhere in the High Peak district of Derbyshire, often Edale (the start of the Pennine Way), they extend south into Staffordshire and the southern parts of Cheshire and Derbyshire. The true southern end of the Pennines is in the Stoke-on-Trent area, about 40 miles (64 km) south of Edale.

Marie Skłodowska-Curie (7 November 1867 – 4 July 1934) was a French-Polish physicist and chemist famous for her pioneering research on radioactivity. She was the first person honored with two Nobel Prizes—in physics and chemistry. She was the first female professor at the University of Paris, and in 1995 became the first woman to be entombed on her own merits in the Panthéon in Paris.

She was born Maria Salomea Skłodowska ([ˈmarja salɔˈmɛa skwɔˈdɔfska]) in Warsaw, in what was then the Kingdom of Poland. She studied at Warsaw's clandestine Floating University and began her practical scientific training in Warsaw. In 1891, aged 24, she followed her older sister Bronisława to study in Paris, where she earned her higher degrees and conducted her subsequent scientific work. She shared her 1903 Nobel Prize in Physics with her husband Pierre Curie and with the physicist Henri Becquerel. Her daughter Irène Joliot-Curie and son-in-law, Frédéric Joliot-Curie, would similarly share a Nobel Prize. She was the sole winner of the 1911 Nobel Prize in Chemistry. Skłodowska-Curie was the first woman to win a Nobel Prize, the only woman to date to win in two fields, and the only person to win in multiple sciences.