From the windows of history, the world has seen many influential women shape society.
A user named “Time Capsule Tales” shared a list of history’s most influential women on platform X. Let’s have a look at them:
Frida Kahlo: The Mexican painter known for her uncompromising brilliantly coloured self-portraits exploring themes of identity, death, and the human body to express her innermost thoughts, experience, and feelings with the ample use of symbolic imagery like animals, plants, etc., becoming an icon of feminism.
Maria Salomea Skłodowska-Curie: Marie Curie is the first woman to win a Nobel prize, the first woman to win a second Nobel prize, and the first female professor at Paris University. Her discoveries were immensely useful in treating cancer.
Susan B. Anthony: A teacher, speaker, and the leader of women's suffrage whose name is associated with the 1920s 19th amendment (women's right to vote) as the “Susan B. Anthony amendment” as an honour to her arduous work and belief in women’s rights.
Rosa Parks: Known as the “mother of the civil rights movement”, Rosa Parks's life is a battle against discrimination while helping homeless people find housing and providing them jobs. She received the Congressional Gold Medal of Honor, the highest civilian honour in the United States in 1999.
Florence Nightingale: Nicknamed the founder of modern nursing and known as 'the Lady with the Lamp', her role was important in creating a permanent military nursing service. Her book "Notes on Nursing: What It Is and What It Is Not," is studied as the foundational text in nursing education.
Ada Lovelace: Born with a passion for science and mathematics against her class and gender, she is considered the world’s first computer programmer. In honour, the U.S. Department of Defense named her programming language as ‘Ada programming language’.
Cleopatra: Known for her intelligence and political acumen, Cleopatra’s rule in Egypt was the most influential one with the patronage of arts and support of scholars, which helped restore the power of ancient Egypt. Her legendary life and reign have become the source of many artworks, movies, and literature.
Margaret Thatcher: The first female prime minister of the United Kingdom, her government was famous as the Thatcher government which made significant changes in the UK with privatization of state-owned companies, tax reform, and many more.
Mother Teresa: Becoming a nun at the age of 18, she took vows of chastity, obedience, poverty, and free service to the poor. Her work in 130 countries including managing homes for the dying, soup kitchens, schools, orphanages, etc., brought her Nobel Peace Prize in 1979.