It's important for two reasons.

First, it's just a precautionary measure. Every once in a while I have to remind my children that USA is not the only great country in the world. Other countries have also fought for their land, produced great artists and scientists and usually have quite an interesting history.

Second, putting my scientific hat on, if some country has much more/less scientists than another, then at least the fact should be noted and reflected upon.

I agree with your sentiment, generally speaking. It derives from needing to pull pride from another thing through self-selected association. It's the same thing that sports fans do when their preferred team wins a championship. You see all sorts of weird permutations of this concept in action. When NASA or SpaceX does something, it's said to be an accomplishment for all of humanity, people around the world want a piece of that pride, to be part of a great thing.

It's a component of tribalism (and neither inherently positive nor negative), probably deeply wired into humanity. It also happens around race, religion, politics and ideology broadly.

Why? Well, the answer is a mixed bag of positives and negatives. It's the same reason people obsess over celebrities (tabloids, fan groups, and so on). Their own lives are not very interesting, they lack/yearn for accomplishment, so they desperately seek to fill voids via the things they take an interest in, trying to grab hold of accomplishment elsewhere, slice off a tiny bit of that for themselves through distant association. It's why nations culturally revel in their historical accomplishments, even if they were 2,000 years ago. On the positive side, it probably helps create bonds between people socially, culturally, and is likely a requirement for the formation and sustainment of civilization (drawing pride from a thing, allocates self-interest in supporting/protecting the thing).

Individuals don't exist in isolation. When you are associating results of individuals with a nation you are acknowledging that the farmer, the truck driver, the grocery store employee, the construction workers, etc all contributed their part to society that enabled the result of that individual.

This article is associating the success of Marie Curie with the group of women that supported her directly. Nations are just large groups of people.

When an individual claims to have done everything on his own it reeks of narcissism. A lot of wealthy people never talk about the support they have received and claim their individuality to be the sole reason of success even when their wealth was built on the backs of millions.

I always felt like it was the only thing people could relate to. "Wow, we're from the same place, see we are (better,best,number1)" vs actually contributing to their own nation.

But, I also think being proud of the country you're/belong to in isn't a bad thing either.

So fun stuff.

She isolated radium from (many tons of) Uranitite, which was donated by Austrian goverment. This was waste byproduct of mines in Jáchymov (today in Czech republic).

See https://web.archive.org/web/20170704193910/http://history.ai...

Processing uranium ore by the ton, a few grams per ton!

Yes, she did bring it back in her purse. As well she would keep a vial as a pocket toy to show off at parties (it ionizes the air and glows blue).

Her textbooks are still very radioactive.

Yes, it means it's her maiden name, but née just translates as born. It was her birth name.

> the country failed her, by not giving the possibility of attending university

The country didn't exist at the time, being partitioned between Prussia, Russia and Austria-Hungary. Poles didn't have much to say about the university admission policies of the Russian Empire, where she lived. She did, however, attend the so called Flying University [1], which was a higher education institution organized by Polish underground resistance.

[1] - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Flying_University

Seems like wikipedia decided that they preferred to use the name she is most commonly known by in english sources. I found an old discussion about it https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Talk:Marie_Curie/Archive_2#Req...

1. Wikipedia states: "according to a notice in Nature at the time, it was named in honour of Pierre Curie, but was considered at least by some to be in honour of Marie Curie as well."

2. The Curie isn't an SI unit, the Becquerel (Bq) is.

Time to change that, then. She insisted on using both surnames and strongly emphasized her Polish roots throughout her life. Erasing her Polish maiden name clashes with her wishes and is only possible, because due to historical circumstances Poland had very limited impact on global popular culture.

Not in polish history nor pop culture. Given that she insisted on using both it is kind of disrespectful to her.