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

[AwfulMaureen]

There are LOADS of women in history who've done incredible things or had amazing careers but have been forgotten...like an amazing singer from the twenties/thirties who also worked as a prostitute and who wrote and sang some of the most shockingly filthy songs in addition to having a stunning voice.

She began singing professionally as a child having been singing on the street for money...she was offered work in bars. ...I love Lucille Bogan...WARNING...don't play the song in the link if the kids are around!

Tell me your favourite unknown women?

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

What's that called? A Twitter storm? The dawn chorus?

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

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

Emma Goldman. Anarchist, feminist and revolutionary.

great quotes

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.

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

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

Mary Seacole

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

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.

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

Guess what I named my first DD?

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.

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.

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.

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

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.

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

My grandmother was at a church meeting that Gladys Alyward spoke at. The book about her is really interesting.

Oh yes, Jean Rhys- she is one of my favourite authors. Wide sargasso sea is incredible especially if you love or like Jane Eyre.

www.independent.co.uk/arts-entertainment/books/reviews/book-of-a-lifetime-wide-sargasso-sea-by-jean-rhys-876227.html

That's such a brilliant book, dyslexic, I love it.

I read a brilliant biography of JR a few years ago called The Blue Hour - it's definitely worth a read if you're a fan.

Beat Sirota Gordon is another hero of mine. An American, she was only 22 when she managed to enshrine women's rights into the new post-war Japanese constitution in 1946.

She's a feminist hero among many Japanese women.

I'd like to throw an Australian one into the mix. Deborah Lawrie (nee Wardley) was the first female commercial pilot in Australia. She won a big constitutional law case based on sex discrimination after the airline (who had been forced to hire her) tried to skirt ant-discrimination laws and dismiss her purely based on her gender.
No one here ever seems to know her! She's still a pilot too.

Has anyone mentioned St Ursula?

Early feminist and revolutionary leader?

Basically she had been promised to some rich bloke - the time for the marriage came, and she said that instead she needed to travel round Europe to find herself. Did a Gap Yah round Europe, after which she was executed on the banks of the Rhone with apparently, 11 thousand virgins who were her followers, because of her Christian beliefs.

Great leadership qualities, committed to her ideals, and not prepared to become a chattel.

Another vote for the mighty Eleanor of Aquitaine. Extraordinary woman. She was wonderfully portrayed by Katharine Hepburn in The Lion In Winter (incidentally, the President's favourite movie, in West Wing). Also stars Peter O'Toole, Anthony Hopkins and Timothy Dalton.