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

Mary Anning. British fossil collector and self-taught palaeontologist extraordinaire.

As a working-class woman in 19th century Dorset, she never received the acknowledgement that was her due during her lifetime.

In 2010 (163 years after her death) the Royal Society named her as one of the ten British women who most influenced the history of science.

Williamina Fleming. Scottish astronomer who discovered the Horsehead Nebula.

Alice Kober. Made crucial contributions to deciphering the Linear B script.

en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Olive_Morris

Couple of wartime women of note:

en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lettice_Curtis

en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Violette_Szabo

Grace Hopper

US navy rear admiral, computer pioneer and one of the reasons you and I are able to speak to each other on the internet:

en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Grace_Hopper

Came on here to say Dorothy Hodgkin, first British female Nobel Prize winner and yet much less known than Rosalind Franklin. Overlooked for the Nobel for years until Max Perutz won it and started to fight her case.

Wow, cinnamon, that's an interesting tale- bit like rosalind franklin then? Terrible!

Just wanted to comment on this. Rosalind Franklin didn't get the Nobel Prize because she was dead by the time it was awarded. She had a bad reputation because of James Watson's book but actually Frances Crick did a lot of work with her after the DNA structure and they got on very well, once she left Kings she did much better professionally because she wasn't as isolated. A lot of the problems she had at Kings may well have been due to anti-semitism as much as misogyny. Having said that I'm not sure how they would have split the Nobel Prize if she had been alive, since it can only be split 3 ways.

Sophie Germain

Female mathematician born in France 1776, so overlaps with Paulze mentioned above. Her parents took away her clothes to stop her studying maths as it was "inappropriate for a woman".

Eventually they changed their minds, and she was able to start studying by correspondence with the Ecole Polytechnique, using a male pseudonym. She was slowly outed to Lagrange, Gauss and Legendre, and continued to work with them, although her work probably never reached its full potential due to her lack of early grounding in rigour.

Hilda Gibson, who died recently aged 88. She was in in the Women's Land Army (a 'Land Girl') during WWII and later successfully campaigned for Land Girls to receive recognition for their war service.

You can listen to a fascinating interview with her here

DD2 (Reception) came home and told me about Bessie Coleman . She dragged herself out of poverty and background of slavery and became the first Africian-AMerican aviatrix.

Ruth First

Anti-apartheid activist detained, exiled and eventually murdered with a parcel bomb in 1982

Albertina Sisulu

Anti-apartheid activist who was a key figure in several important political groups, was frequently detained, and still managed to fit in her social development work for children and old people.

Pigsus Eek! Not quite as noble as I thought.

Isabella Bird. Victorian solo traveller in the USA, Australia, Hawaii, China, Korea, Malaysia and India. And wrote wonderful books about the places she went to.

Oinktopus Susan B Anthony was also massively racist though She actively campaigned for black people to lose the vote so women could gain it.

Victoria Mxenge.

Black South African born in 1942, so grew up on the wrong side of the 1953 Bantu Education Act. She trained as a nurse and midwife anyway, then studied law by distance learning and worked at her husband's law practice.

After her husband was murdered by the South African government in 1981, she carried on the law practice without him until she too was murdered by the government in 1985.

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Rosina Bulwer Lytton. Rose up against her husband to become a writer in her won right, despite her husband and his influential friends trying to have her certified insane. She was quite a character and although she did some questionable things, she did manage to have a voice in an age where women should be seen and not heard.

The four Trout sisters of Hallsands in Devon. I can't find any links that do all of them justice. Unfortunately the hotel that they built has been redeveloped now but the story of their lives used to be in the foyer and made interesting reading.

Susan B. Anthony and Elizabeth Cady Stanton toured America demanding suffrage and equal pay for women. Anthony was arrested and fined a huge sum simply for voting in an election. The amazing thing is the time period in which this happened. Anthony started campaigning in the 1840s.

Hedy Lamarr Hollywood movie star and inventor

Olympe de Gouges
Marie-Anne Pierrette Paulze who redeemed something from one of the most idiotic murders during the Terror.

Anne askew

Protestant martyr, only woman to ever have been tortured in The Tower. Refused to implicate others inc Catherine Parr, thereby saving her life. Refused to adopt her married name. Kicked ass all round.

Rosalind Franklin, scientist involved in the discovery of dna.

James Miranda Barry, doctor. Born: Margaret Bulkley.

Jane Haining. Died in Auschwitz with the children she tried to protect.

Sylvia Pankhurst

She was the daughter of Emmaline Pankhurst and sister to Christabel Pankhurst, but is much less well-known. The women's suffrage movement was connected to the eugenics movement and many believed that only women who owned property or were wealthy should be able to vote, but Sylvia wanted all women including poor women and prostitutes to get the vote. She also played a big role in liberating Ethiopia.

Jessica Mitford

She was one of the famous Mitford sisters (well worth looking up in general, a fascinating bunch) and while most of her sisters became fascists, she became an outspoken communist and left her wealthy family to become an investigative journalist and civil rights campaigner in the US. She had an enormous influence on J K Rowling and Rowling's eldest daughter Jessica is named after her.

I recommend the webcomic Hark, A Vagrant, the author Kate Beaton does comics about many things (and is very funny) but a lot of her work is on great women from history, well-known or not well-known.