Girls are fairly extraordinary. It is a story as outdated as time — even when a girl’s place in society was forbidden, mocked, challenged, and questioned as a norm. For hundreds of years, ladies everywhere in the world have made strides towards a world that is extra equitable; they have been the brains behind unbelievable advances in science, medication, arithmetic, literature and the like, influencing not solely ladies however males, too. That is why, as we gear up for Girls’s Historical past Month (and Worldwide Girls’s Day, which falls on March 8), we’re right here to pay homage to fifteen well-known ladies, celebrating who they have been (and are). In any case, as fascinating as it’s to brush up on Girls’s Historical past Month information, it is much more eye-opening to be taught in regards to the ladies in historical past who’ve so drastically affected society all through the years.
If you happen to did not assume that girls performed an enormous position in the place we’re right now, think about this: The founding father of modern-day nursing was a girl. The scientist who found radium and who monumentally contributed to discovering cures for most cancers was a girl. The writer of the Pentagon Papers and the Watergate scandal (AKA two of the largest information tales of the Twentieth century) was a girl. Evidently, ladies have helped to form society and the world as we all know it. Hold studying to be taught extra ways in which they’ve.
1
Jane Austen (1775 –1817)
“The individual, be it gentleman or woman, who has not pleasure in an excellent novel, have to be intolerably silly.”
Jane Austen is greatest identified for her literary genius, through which she depicts the lives of unusual folks. She wrote six accomplished novels, together with the wildly in style Satisfaction and Prejudice and Sense and Sensibility, which have since been tailored into films and reveals. She just about set the bar for rom-com novels (or what many now consult with as Chick Lit).
2
Ada Lovelace (1815 – 1852)
“That mind of mine is one thing greater than merely mortal; as time will present.”
Ada Lovelace was an English mathematician credited with being the world’s first pc programmer. To this present day, each second Tuesday in October is well known as Ada Lovelace Day by ladies in STEM.
3
Sojourner Reality (1797 – 1883)
“If the primary girl God ever made was robust sufficient to show the world the other way up, these ladies collectively ought to have the ability to flip it proper once more.”
Considered one of the vital influential Black ladies in American historical past, Sojourner Reality was an abolitionist, creator, and girls’s rights advocate. However first, she was only a youngster who was separated from her household and bought into slavery. After fleeing in 1929 with one child in tow whereas being compelled to go away her different two kids behind, she used her freedom to be a voice for the unvoiced. Her Ohio Girls’s Rights Conference speech, “Ain’t I a Lady?”—which she gave in Akron in 1851—continues to be celebrated as a turning level for feminism right now.
4
Florence Nightingale (1820 – 1910)
“By no means give nor take an excuse.”
Florence Nightingale is the founding father of modern-day nursing. After tirelessly tending to the wounded in the course of the Crimean Struggle—changing into referred to as the “Woman with the Lamp” within the course of—Florence established the Nightingale Faculty of Nursing in London in 1860.
5
Marie Curie (1867 – 1934)
“Nothing in life is to be feared; it is just to be understood.”
Marie Curie was a Polish scientist who found each polonium and radium, and coined the time period radioactivity. She was the primary girl to obtain a Nobel Prize (which she earned for her analysis in “radiation phenomena” in 1903). She gained one other in 1911 for her isolation of radium. However that is not all. After her discoveries, Marie went on to develop a conveyable X-Ray machine.
6
Amelia Earhart (1897 – 1939)
“Probably the most tough factor is the choice to behave, the remainder is merely tenacity. The fears are paper tigers. You are able to do something you resolve to do. You’ll be able to act to alter and management your life; and the process, the method is its personal reward.”
Amelia Earhart was an American aviator identified for being the primary girl to fly solo throughout the Atlantic. Later, she turned the primary individual to fly solo from Hawaii to California. Sadly, in an try to be the primary girl to fly all over the world in 1937, Amelia went lacking, by no means to be discovered. She was ultimately declared useless in 1939.
7
Anne Frank (1929 – 1945)
“Regardless of the whole lot, I consider that individuals are actually good at coronary heart.”
Anne Frank is an emblem of the Holocaust, well-known for her diary, through which she detailed what it was wish to stay in hiding in Nazi-occupied Amsterdam. Regardless of the horrors that she recounted and endured, Anne believed within the good of the folks. Her diary, which was was a guide referred to as The Diary of a Younger Lady, has bought roughly 30 million copies up to now.
8
Eleanor Roosevelt (1884 – 1962)
“Nice minds focus on concepts; common minds focus on occasions; small minds focus on folks.”
Eleanor Roosevelt could have been President Franklin D. Roosevelt’s spouse, however she’s identified effectively past that. Earlier than, throughout, and after her stint because the longest-serving First Woman, Eleanor established herself as an activist, diplomat, and humanitarian—advocating for civil rights and girls’s rights—and an eventual spokesperson within the United Nations.
9
Katharine Graham (1917 – 2001)
“Nobody can keep away from growing old, however growing old productively is one thing else.”
If you hear in regards to the Pentagon Papers or the breaking information Watergate scandal, you probably consider the authors that wrote them. If you happen to transcend that, nonetheless, you may discover the writer that accepted them for print: Katharine Graham, the primary Twentieth-century feminine writer of a serious American newspaper. Briefly, she was a feminine trailblazer on this planet of publishing and media.
10
Rosa Parks (1913 – 2005)
“I’ve discovered over time that when one’s thoughts is made up, this diminishes worry; understanding what have to be completed does away with worry.”
Rosa Parks is legendary for being the catalyst of the Civil Rights Motion. In 1955, Rose refused to surrender her entrance seat on a bus in Montgomery, Alabama, which she was jailed and fined for. The expertise led to the Montgomery Bus Boycott and numerous different Civil Rights protests, and cemented Rosa as an emblem of dignity and power amidst racial segregation.
RELATED: 21 Highly effective Rosa Parks Quotes About Civil Rights and Equality
11
Maya Angelou (1928 – 2014)
12
Ruth Bader Ginsburg (1933 – 2020)
“Combat for the issues that you simply care about, however do it in a means that may lead others to affix you.”
Ruth Bader Ginsburg was a ladies’s rights activist, to not point out the second feminine justice of the U.S. Supreme Court docket. As a pioneer of gender equality, RBG co-founded the Girls’s Rights Venture on the ACLU, which “empowers poor ladies, ladies of colour, and immigrant ladies who’ve been topic to gender bias and who face pervasive boundaries to equality.”
13
Gloria Steinem (1934 – Current)
“With out leaps of creativeness, or dreaming, we lose the thrill of prospects. Dreaming, in any case, is a type of planning.”
Gloria Steinem is revered as one of the vital passionate leaders of the ladies’s liberation motion. For many years, Gloria has toured the nation, main marches and chatting with the lots in regards to the significance of gender equality. In 2013, Obama awarded her the Presidential Medal of Freedom for her efforts.
14
Dolly Parton (1946 – Current)
“You will by no means do an entire lot until you are courageous sufficient to strive.”
Many individuals know Dolly Parton as an iconic nation music star with fashion (and a silhouette) that is laborious to overlook. In actuality, Dolly is among the most notable superstar philanthropists of our time. She created the Creativeness Library, a program that items free, age-appropriate books to kids from start to age 5, in 1995 to instill a love of studying and creativeness in generations to return. She’s donated practically 2 million books up to now. She additionally donates to science. In 2020, she donated $1 million towards the analysis behind Moderna’s Covid-19 vaccine.
15
Greta Thunberg (2003 – Current)
“As soon as we begin to act, hope is in all places. So as a substitute of in search of hope, search for motion. Then, and solely then, hope will come.”
Greta Thunberg could solely be 20 years outdated, however she’s making historical past as we converse. The younger girl is a well-respected environmental activist who’s working to make sure the subsequent era is well-equipped for the local weather combat. In 2018, she based Fridays for Future (AKA Faculty Strike for Local weather), a youth-led local weather strike motion that goals to maintain the world knowledgeable.
Rebecca Norris
Rebecca Norris is a full-time freelance author dwelling within the DC metro space.
