5 Women Who Changed History - A Tribute

In celebration of Women's’ month, we decided to look back at five extraordinary women who dedicated their lives to changing the world. The world has not always been an easy place for women, as the fairer sex, women have had to endure some gross inequalities. The strength and dedication to do what is right has given our five favourite women in history their spotlight this week.
 

1. Marie Curie
The Polish-French physicist, Marie Curie, helped to shape the world of the 20th and 21st Century. She was the first woman to win a Nobel Prize and to date remains the only winner of two Nobel Prizes in different fields of research. Curie is well known for her advancement in radioactive research and being a pioneer for women in science,  breaking through multiple boundaries to be accepted by the scientific community as a whole.

2. Rosa Parks
Rosa Parks, who is better known as the “mother of the freedom movement” in the United States of America, was a very bold woman and one who had the courage to take a stand and say “enough is enough”. She is best known for the Montgomery Bus Boycott where she refused to give up her seat for another passenger based on her race. She was arrested, tried, and charged on the grounds of disorderly conduct, an event which acted as a catalyst towards the success of the American Civil Rights Movement.

3. Princess Diana - research aids work
Known as the peoples’ princess, Princess Diana dedicated much of her time to giving back to various communities and raising awareness regarding varying social issues and disease. She used her royal image to bring attention to the landmine crisis in Angola and change the stigma surrounding HIV and leprosy. Diana changed the way the public viewed HIV, AIDS and leprosy by shaking hands with infected patients, which changed public perceptions and inspired compassion in people around the world.

4. Amelia Earhart
At a time when career choices for women were limited, Amelia Earhart showed the world that with enough passion and determination, women could follow their dreams and pursue any career they chose to. She challenged the way the world thought of women, as timid home carers, and demonstrated how a woman could achieve anything she set her mind to. Earhart vanished during her solo flight across the Atlantic Ocean and while the events surrounding her death and disappearance remain a mystery, her legacy of breaking boundaries and inspiring young women lives on. 

5. Ellen Johnson Sirleaf
Africa’s first democratically elected female president has done more for her country, Liberia, than break the glass ceiling. Liberia was once a wartorn country where violence was an everyday occurrence. It is estimated that between 1989 and 2003, 250,000 people were killed in the civil war and 38,000 children were forced to take up arms and fight. This all changed when in 2005, Ellen Johnson Sirleaf was elected the country’s President. She erased nearly $5 billion in foreign debt allowing Liberia to open up to foreign investment during the first three years of her presidency. In 2011, she won the Nobel Peace Prize for her work in ending the Liberian civil war, erasing the country’s crippling debt, and making it safe for 133,000 Liberian refugees to return home.

These five women were able to change the world, whether through the advancement of science and politics, or altering the stigmas society attaches to disease, their love and compassion, drive and determination have inspired younger generations to truly believe anything is possible.