What do a Nobel Prize-winning physicist, an American war hero and a world-famous composer have in common? Learn more about five Varsovians who had a great influence on the world of politics, science and art.

Maria Skłodowska Curie (Marie Curie)

In Poland, the world-famous physicist and chemist is best known by her full name: Maria Skodowska-Curie. Skodowska-Curie, who was born in 1867 into a family of teachers, showed an early interest in science and education. She first joined a chemical laboratory and learned how to perform chemical analysis in her hometown of Warsaw. In 1891, she moved to France to study mathematics and physics at the Sorbonne. She met her future husband, a French physicist named Pierre Curie, shortly after graduation. The pair, who both worked together in their laboratory, shared the Nobel Prize in Physics in 1903 for their groundbreaking work on radioactivity. Maria Skodowska-Curie received the Nobel Prize in Chemistry in 1911 for discovering two new elements, polonium and radium. The Polish scientist was the first woman to receive the Nobel Prize and the first to receive it twice.

Kazimierz Pułaski (Casimir Pulaski)

Kazimierz Puaski, known in the United States as Casimir Pulaski, was born in Warsaw in 1745. The Polish nobleman and nationalist famously participated in the anti-Russian insurgency (The Bar Confederation of 1768), known as Poland's first national rebellion. Outside of Poland, Puaski is best known as an American Revolutionary War hero, an experienced cavalry commander (dubbed "the father of the American cavalry") who fought for American independence alongside George Washington. In the United States, Puaski's memory is honoured twice a year: on General Pulaski Memorial Day (11 October) and on Casimir Pulaski Day (the first Monday of March).

Władysław Szpilman

For his autobiographical account of the Holocaust and survival in the Jewish ghetto during the Nazi occupation of Warsaw, the Polish-Jewish pianist and classical composer earned universal acclaim. The harrowing memoir was adapted for the big screen in Roman Polaski's film "The Pianist," which starred Adrien Brody as Szpilman. After the Warsaw Uprising in 1944, the pianist was one of the few "Robinson Crusoes of Warsaw," Polish and Polish-Jewish residents hidden in the rubble of the German-occupied settlement. Szpilman began his musical career after the war, working for Polskie Radio, composing hundreds of evergreens, and performing over 2000 concerts around the world. He died in Warsaw in 2000, two years before his incredible storey was told to foreign viewers in a video.

Tamara Łempicka (Tamara de Lempicka)

While the artist claimed to be a native Varsovian, it is more likely that she was born in Moscow. Tamara empicka, born Maria Górska in 1898, was raised in Warsaw by her Polish mother and grandparents, who were well-to-do members of society. Her relatives would often mingle with the city's cultural elite, such as Artur Rubinstein and Ignacy Jan Paderewski. Empicka developed a deep interest in art as a young girl and set her sights on becoming a painter. She spent the majority of her adult life abroad, first in Paris (where she rose to fame as Tamara de Lempicka as an Art Deco artist), then in the United States and Mexico, where she died in 1980. Empicka gained a reputation as a brilliant, but divisive, artist due to her liberated, hedonistic approach to life. Her painting "La tunique rose," which sold for $13.4 million at Sotheby's New York last year, is the most expensive auctioned painting by a Polish artist.

Fryderyk Chopin

Without a certain Polish musician, the list of popular Varsovians will be incomplete. Fryderyk Chopin was born in the small village of elazowa Wola in 1810, but he spent his entire childhood in Warsaw, where he took piano lessons and developed his love of music from a young age. At the age of eight, the young pianist gave his first public appearance at Warsaw's Radziwi Palace (now the Presidential Palace). Chopin studied at the Warsaw Lyceum and the Warsaw Conservatory of Music as a youth (later renamed The Fryderyk Chopin University of Music). He emigrated to Paris in 1830, never to return to his birthplace, which he sorely missed throughout his life. Chopin's last wish was for his heart to be returned to Poland, and it is now buried in one of the foundations of Warsaw's Holy Cross Church.