Category: Great Women
-
Corazon Aquino
Corazon Aquino was the first women President of the Philippines. Her husband Senator Benigno Aquino Jr was a fierce critic of Ferdinand Marcos, then the President of the Philippines. He was assassinated. Corazon Aquino spearheaded the nationwide protest, called the People Power Revolution, against Ferdinand Marcos. She toppled Marcos from power, and became president in…
-
Why is it said that no one loved gorillas more than Dian Fossey?
“I feel more comfortable with gorillas than with people”, said Dian Fossey. A study trip to Africa in1963 proved to be a turning point in her life. In Rwanda, she met Dr. Louis Leakey, who was studying fossils. She also saw gorillas for the first time, a sight that thrilled her to the core. Three…
-
Who was Toni Morrison?
Toni Morrison is the first black woman, to receive the Nobel Prize for literature. She was born in Ohio to Georg Wofford, a shipyard welder, in 1931. By day, she worked as an editor in a publishing house. She wrote in the night. She found writing to be exciting, and her characters took on a…
-
Why is Anne Frank’s diary the most famous one in the world?
‘The diary of Anne Frank’ is a touching record of a young girl’s life in the backdrop of Nazi cruelty. Annie Frank was born to an upper class Jewish family in Germany. They moved to Amsterdam, to escape from the clutches of Adolf Hitler, but Germany invaded the Netherlands in…
-
Why is Margaret Thatcher an important figure in British history?
Margaret Thatcher was Britain’s first female prime minister, and served three consecutive terms in office. She was born on 13th October 1925. She went to Oxford University, and then became a research chemist, retraining to become a barrister in 1954. In 1951, she married a businessman, Denis Thatcher. Margaret Thatcher…
-
Why Chien Shiung Wu was called ‘the first lady of physics’?
Dr. Chien Shiung Wu was a physicist who performed a historic experiment, overturning what had been considered a fundamental law of nature. In her most famous experiment, announced in 1957, she and her colleagues overthrew a law of symmetry in physics called the principle of conservation of parity that had been considered…
-
Rosa Parks
Rosa Parks is an example of how the actions of one person can start a chain reaction of events that have far-reaching results. Her refusal to give up her seat on a city bus inspired other African-Americans to demand better treatment in all areas of their lives. This…
-
Why are Dorothy Hodgkin’s contributions to science important?
Dorothy Hodgkin studied chemistry at Somerville College, but moved to Cambridge University to work on the development of x-ray crystallography. In 1934, Hodgkin returned to Oxford and carried out research into the structure of penicillin. Hodgkin was eventually able to establish that penicillin consisted of a ring of three carbons and…
-
Why is Simone de Beauvoir known as the forerunner of contemporary feminism?
Born and educated in Paris, Simone de Beauvoir was among the first women permitted to complete a programme of study at the Ecole Normale Superieure. Through her lifelong friendship with Sartre, another philosopher, she contributed significantly to the development and expression of a philosophy known as existentialist philosophy. Simone de Beauvoir is best known as…
-
Why Rachel Carson is considered the cornerstone of new environmentalism?
Rachel Carson grew up on a small Pennsylvania farm, where she spent hours exploring the outdoors. She always loved books, and when she was young, thought she would be a writer. She went to the Pennsylvania College for Women. A required course in biology made her change assumptions about her career: she…