Mu Lan was a folk heroine of the Han Dynasty.  According to legend, she was an expert swordswoman and warrior who dressed as a boy and went to war in place of her elderly father, who was too sickly to…

Jeanne Laisne (or possibly “Forquet”) was just a teenager when, in 1472, she joined in the defense of the French city of Beauvais, which was under attack by the troops of Charles the Bold, the Duke of Burgundy.

The city was…

Rani, a modern-day Joan of Arc, was a child of 13 in the 1920s when she joined Indian freedom fighters.

By the tender age of 16, she was a leader of guerrilla forces fighting the British for independence.

Unfortunately, this brave young…

In Hebrew myth, Lilith was the first wife of Adam, the first man.

(Eve, according to this legend, came later.)

However, the couple didn’t get along at all, primarily because Lilith, who was made concurrently with Adam, considered herself Adam’s equal and…

The teenage Catalina de Erauso ran away in 1599 from a Basque convent, dressed as a man.

She went on to live one of the most wildly fantastic lives of any woman in history.

Catalina became a soldier of fortune, renowned for…

The “Queen Mum”:  Woman With the Common Touch

Britain’s “Queen Mum,” remains the most popular royal of modern times thanks to her warm and gracious personality.

The daughter of the 14th Earl of Strathmore, Elizabeth married Prince Albert, the Duke of York,…

Pauline Cushman, a gypsy woman of great beauty, became famous as a Union spy during the Civil War.

An actress who pretended to be sympathetic to the South, she used her position with a traveling show to secretly work for the…

Nellie Bly was the pen name of Elizabeth Cochrane Seaman, a reporter for the New York World.

Nellie, who took her pen name from a song about a social reformer, won renown for her serious investigative reporting, such as her expose…

Wonder Woman, the comic book heroine and daughter of the mythical Amazon Queen Hippolyte, was created by William Moulton Marston, the inventor of the polygraph, or lie detector.

According to the comic, Hippolyte longed for a child and was told by…

Mary Ludwig Hays McCauley became famous as “Molly Pitcher” for her courageous actions during the American Revolutionary War.

Mary’s husband, John Hays, was a gunner stationed near Monmouth, New Jersey.  Mary helped him and the other hot, weary soldiers by carrying…