Born: April 13, 1519, FlorenceDied: January 5, 1589, Blois, France Catherine de Médicis was the queen of France (1547-1559) and mother of the last three Valois kings of France. She was a major force in French politics during the 30 years of Roman Catholic-Huguenot wars and an instigator of the Massacre of Saint Bartholomew’s Day.Catherine […]

Born: April 21 [May 2, New Style], 1729, Stettin, Prussia [now Szczecin, Poland]Died: November 6 [November 17], 1796, Tsarskoye Selo [now Pushkin], near St. Petersburg, Russia Catherine the Great, empress of Russia the second of that name, who continued the process of Westernization begun by Peter the Great and made Russia a European power.Originally named

Born: Feb 1, 1878, near Bakerville, Tenn., U.S.Died: Dec 21, 1950, Falls Church, Va.Hattie Caraway was a American politician who became the first woman elected to the U.S. Senate. Hattie Wyatt grew up in her native Bakerville, Tennessee, and in nearby Hustburg. She graduated (1896) from Dickson Normal School and for a time thereafter taught

Born: March 10, 1947, Port Alberni, British Columbia, CanadaAvril Phaedra Campbell was the 19th prime minister of Canada (1993) and first woman to hold the office. Born Avril Phaedra Campbell in Port Alberni, British Columbia, Campbell received degrees in political science (1969) and law (1983) from the University of British Columbia in Vancouver. She also

Born: April 20, 1939, Oslo, NorwayBrundtland was a politician who served three terms as prime minister of Norway in the 1980s and 1990s and later was director-general of the World Health Organization (1998-2003). Trained as a physician, she became identified with public health and environmental issues and with the rights of women. The daughter of

Died: AD 60 Boudicca was an ancient British queen who in AD 60 led a revolt against Roman rule.Boudicca (died 60) was the queen of the Iceni, a British tribe inhabiting the territory constituting the present-day counties of Norfolk and Suffolk. On the death of her husband, King Prasutagus, the Romans seized her territory. The

Born: June 21, 1953, Karachi, PakistanDied : 27 Dec, 2007 Benazir Bhutto was a Pakistani political leader, who served as prime minister of Pakistan from 1988 to 1990 and from 1993 to 1996. Bhutto was educated at Radcliffe College in the United States and at the University of Oxford in England, where she was the

Born: July 14, 1868, Washington Hall, Durham, EnglandDied: July 12, 1926, Baghdad, Iraq Gertrude Margaret Lowthian Bell was a British archaeologist, writer, and government official, born in Durham County, England, and educated at Lady Margaret Hall, University of Oxford. From 1899 to 1914, she made several archaeological expeditions in Asia Minor and on the Arabian

Born: April 17, 1916, Ratnapura, Ceylon [now Sri Lanka]Died: October 10, 2000, Colombo, Sri Lanka Sirimavo Ratwatte Dias Bandaranaike was the prime minister of Sri Lanka (1960-1965, 1970-1977, 1994-2000), the first woman in the history of the world to hold the office of prime minister. She was born in Balangoda, Ceylon (now Sri Lanka), and

Born: June 19, 1945, Rangoon, Burma[now Yangôn, Myanmar] Daw Aung San Suu Kyi is a leader of the nonviolent movement for human rights and the restoration of democracy in Myanmar (formerly known as Burma), and Nobel laureate. Daw Aung San Suu Kyi was born in Yangon (formerly known as Rangoon) and educated in India and

Born: 1946, Ram Allah, Palestine[now in Israeli-occupied territory]Ashrawi was a Palestinian educator and spokeswoman for the Palestinian delegation to Middle East peace talks in the early 1990s. The youngest daughter of a prominent physician, who was a founder of the Palestine Liberation Organization (PLO), she grew up in an Anglican family. In the late 1960s,

Born: Jan 25, 1933, Manila, Philippines Corazon Aquino is the president of the Republic of the Philippines (1986-1992). Corazon, popularly called Cory, was born Corazon Cojuangco. She was educated in Manila and the United States. In 1953, she graduated from Mount Saint Vincent College in New York City. She returned to the Philippines, married Benigno

Born: December 2, 1083Died: c. 1153Anna Comnena was a Byzantine princess and historian, daughter of Emperor Alexius I Comnenus, born in Constantinople (present-day Istanbul). In 1118, after her father’s death, she conspired against her brother, Emperor John II Comnenus, in an attempt to have the succession changed in favour of her husband, the Byzantine soldier

Born: May 15, 1937, Prague, Czechoslovakia Madeleine Korbel Albright is an American diplomat, secretary of state (1997-2001) under President Bill Clinton. She was the first female secretary of state in the United States history.Born in Prague, Czechoslovakia, Albright fled with her family to London, England, just before the outbreak of World War II (1939-1945). Her

Died: June 12, 918, Tamworth, England Aethelflaed was an nglo-Saxon ruler of Mercia in England. The daughter of King Alfred the Great, she helped her brother Edward the Elder, king of the West Saxons (reigned 899-924), in conquering the Danish armies occupying eastern England. Aethelflaed became the effective ruler of Mercia some years before the