Biography of famous women
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(Image credit: Alamy Stock Photo)
Over the years, history has seen countless incredible women. We're talking about the kind of inspirational, powerful heroes who shook up the world as we know it. From women's rights activists and pioneers of racial equality to inventors, scientists, and world leaders, there are plenty of women throughout history who did the damn thing. So even though we're still often faced with blatant discrimination on the basis of sex, real progress has been made. For inspiration that'll drive you to make your own mark on the world, find inspiration in just some of the many women who shifted our culture in meaningful ways.
(If you're searching for more inspiration from badass women, we've gathered a list of female Black History heroes that have gone unsung, and for movie lovers, a list of the best feminist movies of all time.)
(Image credit: Alamy Stock Photo)
Jane Austen ( –)
You can thank Jane Austen for basically creating those rom-com books you love to read. In her teenage years during the early s, she started writing her most famous novels, like Pride and Prejudice and Sense and Sensibility. She didn't even get credit for her novels until after her death when her brother Henry publicly announced she was the author. E
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Marie Curie, –
Marie Curie changed the world not once but twice. She founded the new science of radioactivity – even the word was invented by her – and her discoveries launched effective cures for cancer.
"Curie boasts an extraordinary array of achievements," says Patricia Fara, president of the British Society for the History of Science, who nominated the Polish-born French scientist. "She was the first woman to win a Nobel Prize, first female professor at the University of Paris, and the first person - note the use of person there, not woman - to win a second Nobel Prize."
Born in Warsaw, Curie studied physics at university in Paris where she met her future research collaborator and husband, Pierre. Together they identified two new elements: radium and polonium, named after her native Poland. After he died, she raised a small fortune in the US and Europe to fund laboratories and to develop cancer treatments.
Marie Curie was a woman of action as well as enormous intellect. During the First World War, she helped to equip ambulances with x-ray equipment, and often drove them to the front line herself.
"The odds were always stacked against her," says Fara. "In Poland her patriotic family suffered under a Russian regime. In France she wa
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