Tell me about an amazing woman in history that I may not have heard about?

Noramum
Oooh. I used to live in Lise-Meitner-Str in Germany but never googled her name.

Lise Meitner, suddenly Chemistry sounded very interesting.

en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lise_Meitner

There are not enough of these ladies know and our girls are in desperate need of these ladies as role models.

I'd say Mary Seacole. She went to nurse the soldiers in the Crimean War. A contemporary of Florence Nightingale, but without her resources.

Imo Mary was a heroine. Www.maryseacole.com

Eglantyne Jebb: co-founder of Save the Children and initiator of the Declaration on the Rights of a Child, later the UN Convention of the Rights of the Child.

Jean Rhys for me - an incredibly talented writer who had issues with poor mental health and addiction but felt that writing stopped her from being a complete failure. She was never a failure, just a woman who suffered due to circumstances beyond her control and managed to write, IMO, some of the most beautiful, compassionate, modern prose there is.

Hertha Marks Ayrton, the female engineer. Invented all sorts of things, including a truly brilliant but very simple kind of fan that if used correctly, created a vortex that removed mustard gas from WW1 trenches, saving lives. She also published in the area of electricity. She was refused membership of the Royal Society because she was married.

Isabella Bird,travelled the world in the 19th century.
Isabella of Spain,a hugely powerful ruler.

Guess what I named my first DD?

Iloveniyaz

ALMOSTMRSG
Gladys Alyward.
Her story was told in the film Inn of the Sixth Happiness.

What a woman! Thanks for telling us about the film. I will definitely be watching this.

You'll need a box of hankies.

Gladys Alward was said to be embarrassed that such a fuss had been made when the film was released.
She comes across to me as someone who just wanted to do good. Always been a hero of mine.

Mary Seacole

She was a black woman around at the same time as Florence Nightingale & did a similar job.

Lise Meitner
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lise_Meitner

Gertrude Elion
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gertrude_B._Elion

Emillie du Chatelet
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/%C3%89milie_du_Ch%C3%A2telet

Chien-Shiung Wu
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chien-Shiung_Wu

Veronica Guerin what a great one. I would not have thought of her.

Nadezhda Popova

She was one of the very first female combat pilots.

www.independent.co.uk/news/obituaries/nadezhda-popova-soviet-pilot-known-as-the-night-witch-8711677.html

Nadezhda Popova: Soviet pilot known as 'the Night Witch'

Nadezhda Popova was part of a unit of Soviet women pilots who flew old biplanes to bomb the invading Germans. As the Wehrmacht approached Moscow in 1941, Stalin, influenced by Marina Raskova, one of very few women in the Soviet air force before the war, agreed to set up a women’ s air force unit, a night bomber regiment. From mechanics to navigators, pilots and officers, it was composed entirely of women.

Aged 19, Popova was one of the first to join what became the best-known of three units, the 588th. By then the Soviets had sustained heavy losses of planes, often on the ground, to the Luftwaffe.The women had to do their best with 1920s, wooden biplanes, Polikarpov Po-2s that had been used for training and lacked radios and modern navigational equipment. They could carry two bombs weighing less than a ton altogether.

The rest of the obituary is in the link above, she died 6 months ago.

Emma Goldman. Anarchist, feminist and revolutionary.

great quotes

en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Veronica_Guerin

Veronica Guerin - Irish Journalist who took on local drug lords, they threatened her continually yet despite this and undeterred she still wrote about them, naming and exposing them. They eventually murdered her, her death led to the formation of the Proceeds of Crime Act 1996, Criminal Assets Bureau Act 1996 and the Criminal Assets Bureau (CAB).

There was a film with Cate Blanchett playing Veronica - highly recommended viewing.

I'm not very eloquent and my post certainly doesn't do her justice - she was brave beyond words

Ah, congratulations Frances Oldham Kelsey - wonder if you're reading?

I'm sure it won't be going anywhere DailyWail but Sunday is MNHQ's gin day day of rest, so we may not hear it's been safely archived under old gin bottles until tomorrow?

• I see it's being tweeted and re-tweeted quite strongly ATM

Haven't had time to read through this thread but wanted to add Frances Oldham Kelsey whose attention to detail and sheer bloody-mindedness kept Thalidomide from getting approval to treat morning sickness in the USA. She's still alive, age 99.

Oops! Posted too soon! It's too interesting a thread to disappear after 90 days.

Mnhq - please move this thread from chat.

not 'history' yet but an impressive woman in the present time is Lynne Sedgemore CBE - you might want to put her on hold for later? think 'spiritual' leadership.

Astrid Lindgren, for writing brilliant children's books with strong and subversive female leads. I love Pippi Longstocking and Ronia the Robber's Daughter.

None to add - many mentioned already - oh, how about Vera Brittain, for her inspiring diary "Testament of Youth"
But marking place really, to read all the others

Mary Seacole -

She is the "Florence nightingale" who often gets forgotten about.