History is full of women who made enormous contributions to the world. From pioneers like Amelia Earhart and leaders like Catherine the Great, women have certainly left their mark in the history books. Check out nine of the most fierce women we've found, and you'll walk away feeling inspired.
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1. Ida B. Wells
It would be impossible to compile a list of history's most heroic women without mentioning Ida Bell Wells. Born during the Civil War, she grew up with politically active parents who encouraged her to believe in her education. Despite being kicked out of Rust College, she garnered a teaching position in Memphis. As her life progressed there, she began to become a vocal activist in her community. Considered the first Black, female journalist, she went on to sue a railroad company for inequality in 1884 and to report about the lynchings taking place in the South. Although she didn't make many friends with fellow humans rights activists of the time, she was an inspiration to leaders like Martin Luther King, Jr. and Rosa Parks.
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2. Vera Atkins
When young Romanian Vera Rosenberg was growing up in Romania, she probably never dreamed that she would go on to become known as the world's greatest female spy. While working in Bucharest, she earned the respect of Winston Churchill by obtaining information from a German ambassador.
Throughout World War II, she continued to supply Churchill with valuable intelligence. In return, she was rewarded with a high-ranking position in his "secret army." In addition to her uncanny ability to smuggle information, she was also an expert at building explosives and improvisational weapons. If you pay close attention to any James Bond movie, you will see her inspiration.
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3. Bessie Coleman
"Brave Bessie" was the Texas-born daughter of a sharecropper and a maid. After she moved to Chicago, she went to school to become a manicurist, but her heart was elsewhere. Through her brothers, she had learned of female aviators flying in France and felt compelled to do the same. When she applied to aviation schools in the United States, she was denied for being both Black and a woman. So she set out on her next mission — learning French. By 1921, she was attending an aviation school in France. The very next year, she impressed crowds with her ability to do tricks and to outperform her male counterparts. With her popularity and talent, she traveled the world performing shows and giving lessons. Unfortunately, her plane malfunctioned in 1923 as she took her very last flight.
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4. Sybil Ludington
Everyone knows of Paul Revere's midnight ride, but he's not the only one to make such a patriotic trek on horseback. Only two years later, young Sybil Ludington was charged with the same task. The 16-year-old daughter of a farmer allowed her father to remain behind and ready the troops to fight the British Army that was approaching their New York home.
By the time Sybil finished riding from farm to farm warning families and alerting soldiers, she had covered between 20 and 40 miles of territory. Although she bought her father's army enough time to assemble, they arrived too late to engage with the retreating British. Nonetheless, her brave efforts were honored with a U.S. postage stamp in 1975.
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5. Marie Curie
Marie Curie was a top student in late 1800s Poland, but it still wasn't enough to for her to be accepted into the University of Warsaw. Because women were not allowed to attend classes, Curie and her sister were forced to attend school at an underground college. Eventually, she was accepted into the Sorbonne and moved to France with her sister.
The only woman to receive two Nobel Peace Prizes and to add two elements to the periodic table, Curie became most famous for discovering radioactivity. She is also credited for developing a portable x-ray machine for soldiers. Her notebooks have been sealed for nearly a century, and they're still radioactive.
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6. Frida Kahlo
Frida Kahlo is famous for her brutally honest and moving self-portraits, but her life is even stranger than her work. As a young girl, Frida wanted to be a doctor, and she was sent to a prestigious all-girls school. While there, she promptly joined a gang. Despite her rambunctious nature, she finished school. However, her life was just beginning. When she was 19, she was in a streetcar accident that left her in a cast. Often bedridden, she modified a mirror to hang above her so that she could portray her feelings with paint. Twice married to famous artist Diego Rivera, Frida didn't let anything stop her. Even though she lived a life of tremendous pain, she rose to be one of the world's first celebrated female artists and a vocal member of the Mexican Communist Party.
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7. Empress Sisi
Being crowned the Queen of Hungary would sound like a reason to celebrate for most people. But for Empress Sisi, it was not a joyful affair. Often compared to Princess Diana, Empress Elisabeth of Austria was also reluctant to be the kind of royal that royals were used to having around the palace in the 1800s. In fact, her husband Franz Joseph was intended to marry her sister until he met and fell in love with Sisi.
When Sisi became the Queen, it didn't sit well with her, and the public pressure became too much. She developed an eating disorder and borrowed a yacht from Queen Victoria to escape her life. While living on a remote island, she developed ideas about equality that met well with the Austrian people. Although she never truly returned to life as it was before her exile, she did hold and use influence over the government and helped bolster those in her nation. Unfortunately, an Italian anarchist did not agree and took her life while she was walking a Geneva street.
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8. Hedy Lamarr
Hedwig Eva Kiesler, or Hedy Lamarr, started acting when she was only 16 years old. Byt 1937, she was living in England where she met the legendary Howard Hughes. Although her career had been in a slump, MGM pictures added her to a film. While onset, Hughes would enlist her help with his inventions and an unlikely bond was formed.
With his encouragement, she began taking more of an interest in the political talk of the time. Along with a musician friend, Lamarr helped to discover "frequency-hopping." It was a technology that could be used to interrupt Nazi transmissions. The U.S. Navy granted the 1943 petition for her invention, but it wasn't used until later when it paved the way for wifi.
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9. Hypatia
It was uncommon for women in Ancient Alexandria to be regarded as anything other than property, but Hypatia's father saw something in her. As an accomplished astronomer, he allowed his daughter to work alongside him. As she grew, her intellect far exceeded any known woman of the time.
Though she became noted as the world's first female mathematician, astronomer, and philosopher, some viewed her preferences and abilities as a threat to society. After her father was murdered, Hypatia was brutally attacked and killed for being a witch.
