Cleopatra
Recently, while surfing the Net I learned this month is Women in History month. Some prominent women in history were chosen as an inspiration to all women and as a timely reminder that women also make history on their own. I have decided to list 10 women from ancient and modern times that have, IMO, shaped our human civilization/societies and provided inspiration to other women throughout the ages to the present day. Here, in chronological order, is the list:
10.
Cleopatra - 69[1] – August 12, 30 BC) Married to Julius Caesar and Mark Anthony...Cleopatra was the last reigning pharoh of Egypt. Cleopatra originally ruled jointly with her father,
Ptolemy XII Auletes, and later with her brothers,
Ptolemy XIII and
Ptolemy XIV, whom she married as per Egyptian custom, but eventually she became sole ruler. As pharaoh, she consummated a liaison with
Julius Caesar that solidified her grip on the throne. She later elevated her son with Caesar,
Caesarion, to co-ruler in name. After
Caesar's assassination in 44 BC, she aligned with
Mark Antony in opposition to Caesar's legal heir, Gaius Julius Caesar Octavianus (later known as
Augustus). With Antony, she bore the twins
Cleopatra Selene II and
Alexander Helios, and another son,
Ptolemy Philadelphus (her unions with her brothers had produced no children). After losing the
Battle of Actium to Octavian's forces, Antony committed suicide. Cleopatra followed suit, according to tradition killing herself by means of an
asp bite on August 12, 30 BC.
[6] She was briefly outlived by Caesarion, who was declared pharaoh by his supporters but soon killed on Octavian's orders. Egypt became the
Roman province of
Aegyptus.
9.
Boadicea-
d. AD 60 or 61) queen of theBritish Iceni tribe, a Celtic tribe who led an uprising against the occupying forces of the Roman Empire.Boudica led 100,000 Iceni,Trinovantes and others to fight Legio IX Hispana and burned and destroyed Londinium, and Verulamium (modern-day St Albans).[3][4] An estimated 70,000–80,000 Romans and British were killed in the three cities by those led by Boudica.
8. Eleanor of Acquitaine - 1122 or 1124 – 1 April 1204) was one of the wealthiest and most powerful women in western Europe during the High Middle Ages and a member of the Ramnulfid dynasty of rulers in southwestern France. She became Duchess of Aquitaine in her own right while she was still a child, then later Queen consort of France (1137–1152) and of England (1154–1189). She was the patron of literary figures such as Wace, Benoît de Sainte-Maure, and Bernart de Ventadorn.
7. Isabella 1 of Castille 22 April 1451-
Medina del Campo, 26 November 1504) was
Queen of Castille. She was married to
Ferdinand II of
Aragon. Their marriage became the basis for the political unification of Spain under their grandson,
Holy Roman Emperor Charles V. After a struggle to claim her right to the throne, she reorganized the governmental system, brought the crime rate to the lowest it had been in years, and unburdened the kingdom of the enormous debt her brother had left behind. Her reforms and those she made with her husband had an influence that extended well beyond the borders of their united kingdoms.
6.
Elizabeth 1st of England 7 September 1533 – 24 March 1603) was
Queen of
England and
Ireland from 17 November 1558 until her death. Sometimes called
The Virgin Queen,
Gloriana or
Good Queen Bess, the childless Elizabeth was the fifth and last monarch of the
Tudor dynasty. In government, Elizabeth was more moderate than her father and half-siblings had been.
[2] One of her mottoes was "
video et taceo" ("I see, and say nothing").
[3] In religion she was relatively tolerant and avoided systematic persecution. After 1570, when the pope
declared her illegitimate and released her subjects from obedience to her, several conspiracies threatened her life, all of which were defeated with the help of her ministers' secret service. Elizabeth was cautious in foreign affairs, manoeuvring between the major powers of France and Spain. She only half-heartedly supported a number of ineffective, poorly resourced military campaigns in the Netherlands, France, and Ireland. By the mid-1580s, England could no longer avoid
war with Spain. England's defeat of the
Spanish Armada in 1588 associated Elizabeth with one of the greatest military victories in English history.
5.
Catherine the Great of Russia - 2 May [
O.S. 21 April] 1729 – 17 November [
O.S. 6 November] 1796), was the most renowned and the longest-ruling female leader of Russia, reigning from 9 July [
O.S. 28 June] 1762 until her death in 1796 at the age of 67. Her reign was called Russia's golden age. She was born in
Stettin,
Pomerania,
Prussia as Sophie Friederike Auguste von Anhalt-Zerbst-Dornburg, and came to power following a
coup d'état and the assassination of her husband,
Peter III, at the end of the
Seven Years' War. Russia was revitalized under her reign, growing larger and stronger than ever and becoming recognized as one of the
great powers of Europe.
4.
Sacagewea c. 1788 – December 20, 1812;
see below for other theories about her death), also
Sakakawea or
Sacajawea, was a
Lemhi Shoshone woman who accompanied the
Lewis and Clark Expedition as an interpreter and guide during their exploration of the
Western United States. With the expedition, she traveled thousands of miles from
North Dakota to the
Pacific Ocean between 1804 and 1806. At the time she made this extremely dangerous exploration, she was in her early 20's and pregnant.
3.
Florence Nightingale - 12 May 1820 – 13 August 1910) was a celebrated English social reformer and statistician, and the founder of modern
nursing. She came to prominence while serving as a manager of nurses trained by her during the
Crimean War, where she organised the tending to wounded soldiers.
[2] She gave nursing a highly favourable reputation and became an icon of Victorian culture, especially in the persona of "The Lady with the Lamp" making rounds of wounded soldiers at night.
[3]
2. Marie Curie - 7 November 1867 – 4 July 1934) was a
Polish and naturalized-French physicist and
chemist who conducted pioneering research on
radioactivity. She was the
first woman to win a Nobel Prize, the first person and only woman to
win twice, the only person to win twice in multiple sciences, and was part of the Curie family legacy of
five Nobel Prizes. She was also the first woman to become a professor at the
University of Paris, and in 1995 became the first woman to be entombed on her own merits in the
Panthéon in Paris.
1.
Valentina Tereshkova - born 6 March 1937) is the first woman to have flown in
space, having been selected from more than four hundred applicants and five finalists to pilot
Vostok 6 on 16 June 1963. In order to join the Cosmonaut Corps, Tereshkova was only honorarily inducted into the
Soviet Air Force and thus she also became the first civilian to fly in space.
[1] Before her recruitment as a cosmonaut, Tereshkova was a textile factory assembly worker and an amateur skydiver. After the dissolution of the first group of female cosmonauts in 1969, she became a prominent member of the
Communist Party of the Soviet Union, holding various political offices. She remained politically active following the collapse of the
Soviet Union and is still referred as a heroine in post-Soviet
Russia.
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There you have it, folks. 10 Women who made a mark in the world on their own terms. All these women were pioneers and "feminists"-- in the sense that they broke new ground in the evolution/empowerment of woman by refusing to conform to the stereotypes set out for women throughout human history. Bravo!!!
Last week they were insisting that Lubitz was NOT being treated for depression (but wouldn't say what he was treated for).
At this point, Lubitz' medical condition is a moot point. The official story is laced with lie after lie after lie. As posted before, the initial CNN report indicated that the plane had issued an emergency call, and had suddenly lost airspeed before the descent. The White House had issued that weird statement that the crash was not caused by an act of terror before anyone supposedly knew what the cause was. The French reported finding the Digital Flight Recorder, then said it had not been found, then said they found the empty case, then revised that to say that the memory card had become dislodged. As documented below, Digital Flight Recorders do not have a single memory card that can be removed. The claim was made that Lubitz was breathing normally as heard on the cockpit voice recorder, yet cockpits are very noisy during flight, noisier than the cabin, in which the sound of normal breathing would be lost to the sounds of air streaming past the cockpit windows. The whole "locked out of the cockpit" story breaks down because there is a mechanism by which the crew can open the cockpit door from outside.
We are seeing another badly-organized "chase its own tail" botched propaganda effort to cover up something else. Maybe France is trying to protect the reputation of Airbus. Maybe Germany wants to protect the reputation of German airliners. Maybe we have another one of those getting-too-frequent accidental military shoot downs.
But what we clearly do NOT have coming from the government and media, is an accurate telling of what actually did happen!