JUANA AZURDUY……a Mestiza revolutionary…..was a ferocious Andean commander….she led thousands of Indigenous and Mestizo fighters, capturing enemy and launched cavalry charges…..even while she was pregnant….she rescued her captured husband…..despite all this, history sidelined her…..Bolivia recently posthumously promoted her to General of the Argentine Army in 2009….nearly two centuries after her heroic deeds.
THOUGH BLIND SINCE CHILDHOOD….Maria Theresia von Paradis became a brilliant pianist who toured Europe…..while performing from memory….her remarkable talent inspired Mozart to compose his Piano Concerto No. 18 in B-flat major for her…..she was also a successful composer, founded a music school and created numerous works herself….thus ensuring her legacy extended far beyond her favorite muse.
IN 1887, HARRIET STRONG….transformed drought into innovation….widowed and raising four daughters….she devised stepped dams to capture fleeting rains…..and revived her failing California farm….her design became the blueprint for Western water management…..and later mega projects like the Hoover Dam….all without formal engineering training…..she earned patents, awards, addressed Congress….and carved a place for women in engineering and reshaped the future of water sustainability.
AS A WIDOW….Sayyida al-Hurra didn’t bother morning her loss….she commanded a pirate fleet….seeking vengeance on Iberian powers for expelling Muslims from Granada….her homeland….she became the undisputed ruler of Moroccan Mediterranean…..she forged a powerful alliance with the Ottoman corsair Barbarossa…..making her the only Islamic woman in history to partner directly with the Sultan’s feared admiral…..from the position of strength, she personally negotiated ransoms and treaties with the Portuguese and Spanish monarchs she so despised…..while turning her grief into a formidable political and military force.
THE 417 AGOJIE WARRIORS….who died charging French lines in 1892….were part of an all-female army….that existed for 200 years….France suppressed their history after defeating them….hoping the world would forget the women who made their Foreign Legionnaires retreat….the Mino’s military training and ritual dances are still practiced in Benin today.
BORN IN 1867….on a Louisiana cotton plantation….Saraj Breedlove faced poverty, scalp disease and racism…..she developed her own hair-care system for Black women…..sold it door-to-door, and trained agents nationwide while building a thriving company….and becoming by 1919 America’s first recorded female self-made millionaire.
IN APRIL 1931….the New York Yankees came to Chattanooga, Tennessee for an exhibition game…..expecting an easy win….seventeen-year-old Jackie Mitchell….took the mound and struck out Babe Ruth and Lou Gehrig in front of the crowd….afterwards, officials cancelled her contract….saying, “Baseball was too hard for women.”
WHEN MARY KENNER…..invented the sanitary belt in the 1950’s…. it’s most critical feature was a moisture-proof napkin pocket…..a revolutionary concept for period care…..despite its ingenuity….her race became a tragic barrier…..a company that initially showed interest abruptly rejected her invention…..once they discovered she was Black…..she eventually received her patent in 1956….and she went on to secure a total of five patents throughout her life….including versions with an integral moisture-proof shield…..directly paving the was for the disposable pads used by millions today.
IN 1943…..German chemist Ida Noddack proposed that atoms could be split…..a theory dismissed by her peers as “crazy”….four years later, her idea of nuclear fusion was proven correct…..unlocking the atomic age and changing the world forever….her groundbreaking work was almost lost to history.
EMPRESS TAYTU BETUL….was not merely a co-founder of Addis Ababa….she personally selected its strategic location for the natural hot springs….naming the city “New Flower”…..a formidable political strategist….she was instrumental of Ethiopia’s victory against Italy in 1869….at the Battle of Adwa….she commanded her own army dan famously refused a deceptive peace treaty declaring,…. “I am a woman, and I prefer war to accepting your deal”….while ensuring a triumph…..that preserved Ethiopian sovereignty.
MARIYA AKOBTSOVA….was no ordinary nun…she smoked, debated theology fiercely and viewed hospitality as a radical act of defiance….as Mother Maria in Nazi-occupied Paros….she turned he convent into a secret hub of the Resistance….she smuggled Jewish children to safety in trans bins….and forged baptismal certificates, famously declaring, “If the Nazis come for Jews….we will all be Jews”….her mission ended in a Ravensbrück concentration camp….where she is believed to have voluntarily taken the place of another prisoner sent to the gas chamber embodying her belief that….. “Love in action is a harsh and dreadful thing compared to love in dreams.”