When we talk about women, one thing that comes to mind is love. Women are compassionate, caring, nurturing, and whatnot. Women have been giving birth and taking care of mankind and also many women have influenced the world in many ways. Here are the four most influential women who changed the world.
1. Marie Curie
Marie Curie is known for her discovery of Polonium and Radium and also for her work in the treatment of cancer. Marie Sklodowska Curie was born on 7th November 1867 in Warsaw, Poland. After completing high school, she moved to Paris in 1891 for higher studies.
At the Sorbonne, she obtained a Licence in Physics and Mathematical Sciences. In 1894, she met Pierre Curie, a professor in the School of Physics, and they got married the next year. They had two daughters, Irene born in 1897, and Eve born in 1904. She got a Doctor of Science degree in 1903 and took her husband’s place as Head of the Physics Laboratory after the death of Pierre Curie in 1906. She took his place as Professor of General Physics in the Faculty of Sciences and became the first woman to have held this position. Marie Curie got the Nobel Prize in 1898, for her thesis on the study of rays emitted by uranium compounds. She died on 4th July 1934 in France. She was the only woman to win the Nobel Prize twice and in two scientific fields.
2. Jane Austen
Jane Austen was born on 16th December 1775 in Steventon, Hampshire, England. She started writing as a teenager and wrote six novels showing the life of ordinary people in her time. She was a fast writer as four of her novels were published one after the other in just four years. These are Sense and Sensibility, Pride and Prejudice, Mansfield Park, and Emma. Northanger Abbey and Persuasion were published after her death. She was not able to complete her last novel that was her seventh novel.
All of her work was published anonymously without her name and nobody knew that she was a writer when she was alive. Ironically, Jane Austen’s first novel, Sense and Sensibility was published simply ‘by a lady, and her second novel,’ Pride and prejudice’ was published with ‘By the Author of Sense and Sensibility. She died on July 18, 1817, in Winchester, Hampshire.
Jane Austen’s novels are popular to date as the characters she wrote are real and relevant. She gets into the minds of her characters and was able to show their inner feelings. Readers can relate to these characters, can empathize with them, feel their sorrows and happiness. All her novels are loved all over the world but she never got the credit she deserved in her life. The only woman to feature on a £10 note in Britain, apart from the Queen is Jane Austen.
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3. Florence Nightingale
Florence Nightingale, famous as ‘The Lady with the Lamp’ was born on 12th May 1820 in Florence, Italy. Florence Nightingale was the creator of modern nursing and a social reformer. Nightingale became famous when she served as a manager and trainer of nurses during the Crimean War. She arranged for the care of the wounded soldiers at Constantinople.
She not only improved the sanitary conditions of the hospital but also organized many patient services to improve the conditions of their hospital stay. At night, Florence Nightingale would take rounds of the British soldiers’ wards with a lantern in her hand and listen to their physical and psychological problems.
She introduced an “invalid’s kitchen” to provide food for patients. She set up a laundry to help the patients in getting clean linens. She also introduced a classroom and a library for patients to inspire them to study. Nightingale wrote a long report about the facts influencing the health, working capacity, and Hospital Administration of the British Army based on what she observed while working as a trainer of nurses during the Crimean war.
In 1859 Florence Nightingale published her notes on Nursing as What it is and What it is not, a guide about her methods of taking care of the sick people. In 1907, she was awarded the Order of Merit. Every year International Nurses Day is observed on May 12 to celebrate her birth and the importance of nurses in health care. She died on 13 August 1910 in Mayfair, London, United Kingdom.
4. Margaret Thatcher
Margaret Hilda Roberts known as Margaret Thatcher was born on October 13th, 1925, in Grantham, Lincolnshire, England. Thatcher matriculated at Oxford University in 1943, during World War II. She studied Chemistry there and became a member of the Oxford Union Conservative Association.
Margaret married Denis Thatcher, a prosperous businessman in December 1951. She became the mother of twins, Carol and Mark in the next two years. She also continued studies for the bar exams and passed them in early 1954. She practiced law for a few years. In 1950, Thatcher first ran for Parliament and was unsuccessful. She got entry into the House of Commons, winning the “safe” Conservative seat of Finchley in north London in 1959. She served as a parliamentary secretary in the Ministry of Pensions and National Insurance and also secretary of state for education and steadily rose within the party.
Her hard work led her Conservative Party to win three straight elections and held office for 11 years from May 1979 to November 1990. It was much longer-term than any other British politician held in the 20th century. Mrs. Thatcher was the first woman to become Prime Minister of Britain. The Iron Lady of Britain, Margaret Thatcher gave her country an economic direction and also led her country in winning the Falklands War.
Margaret Thatcher became the first living ex-prime minister in British history in 2007 when she was honored with a statue in the Houses of Parliament that stands opposite a statue of Winston Churchill in the lobby of the House of Commons. She died at the age of 87 on 8 April 2013 in London. Thatcher was now one of the most powerful and influential women in the world who will be always remembered for her work.
