March 8th is International Women’s Day, so it is a great time to review your knowledge about famous women in history. Can you identify these trailblazers? Answers appear below.
1. This Polish-French physicist’s work won her a Nobel Prize in physics in 1903 and a second Nobel in chemistry in 1911.
2. This “Lady with the Lamp” tended the wounded during the Crimean War and is considered the founder of modern-day nursing.
3. Famous for her diary detailing what it was like to live in hiding during World War II, she became a symbol of the Holocaust.
4. She was the first 20th century female publisher of a major American newspaper and approved the publication of both the Pentagon Papers and the breaking news of the Watergate scandal.
5. She was fined and jailed for refusing to give up her front seat on a bus, sparking the Montgomery, Ala. bus boycott and other Civil Rights protests.
6. This country-western singer is one of the most notable celebrity philanthropists of our time, establishing the Imagination Library which provides free books for young readers.
7. She starting writing as a teenager in the early 1810s and anonymously published her famous novels including “Pride and Prejudice” and “Sense and Sensibility.”
8. This artist’s self-portrait was the first work by a 20th century Mexican artist to be featured in the Louvre.
9. In 1966, she became the third prime minister of India and governed for more than 20 years until her assassination in 1984.
10. This writer and professor won both the Pulitzer and the Nobel Prize in Literature for her works, including “Song of Solomon” and “Beloved.”
11. As the first woman to serve as British prime minister, she went on to become the longest-serving prime minister of the 20th century.
12. A Kansas native, she was an aviation pioneer, flying solo across the Atlantic Ocean in 1932.
13. Shot in 2012 for opposing Taliban restrictions on female education, this Pakistani woman, age 17, became the youngest person to win the Nobel Peace Prize.
Answers:
1. Marie Curie
2. Florence Nightingale
3. Anne Frank
4. Katharine Graham
5. Rosa Parks
6. Dolly Parton
7. Jane Austen
8. Frida Kahlo
9. Indira Ghandi
10. Toni Morrison
11. Margaret Thatcher
12. Amelia Earhart
13. Malala Yousafzai
