Jerrie Cobb, who had been flying planes since she was a teenager, began making a name for herself in 1957 with record-breaking flights that attracted the attention of NASA (National Aeronautics and Space Administration).
Urged by NASA to take the rigorous…
Bessie Abramowitz, a Russian immigrant, was only fifteen when she was hired to sew on buttons at Chicago’s Hart, Schaffner & Marx plant.
The young woman had barely begun to work there when her salary, already low, was reduced even further. …
Lady Godiva’s famous ride may be more legendary than historical, but the story is worth the telling.
This good-hearted woman was the wife of Leofric, Earl of Chester, who lived in the 11th century. According to tradition, Lady Godiva was upset…
Elizabeth Blackwell, born in England in 1821, was the first woman in the US to graduate with a degree in medicine.
The sister of another pioneering female physician, Emily Blackwell, she emigrated to the United States at the age of eleven…
Valerie Andre, a French neurosurgeon, was assigned in 1949 to treat injured soldiers in Indochina.
She soon realized that the hardest part of her job was finding the wounded, who were often trapped in the jungle.
So she returned to France, learned…
Born Harriet Ross in Bucktown, Maryland, in about 1820, and raised a slave, Harriet married John Tubman, a free black, in 1844.
She escaped from slavery alone via the Underground Railroad five years after her marriage. However, her own freedom wasn’t…
Calamity Jane was the popular name of Martha Jane Canary Burk, born in Princeton, Missouri, in about 1852 (her exact birthdate is not known).
An expert sharpshooter and rider who dressed as a man, Calamity Jane was a companion to “Wild…
Baba Yaga is the hideous witch who eats humans and lives in the deep, dark reaches of the fairytale forest. Her wooden hut stands on chicken legs and is surrounded by sharp posts with the skulls of her victims.
She is…
Phoolan Devi was “walking tall, taunting them all, answering the call…with her rifle by her side.” So goes a popular Indian song honoring the country’s “Bandit Queen.” Phoolan, born to a lower caste family in India, suffered humiliation and abuse…
Now, here’s a headline: Elderly Woman Single-Handedly Scares Off the Enemy, Saunters Away. Matilda Newport, an ex-slave, was a member of a struggling colony of free American blacks who planned to form a new nation in Equatorial Africa in the…