Women who changed the world: fifty inspirational women who shaped history

Cleopatra, 69 BCE-30 BCE

Mary Magdalene, c. 4 BCE-CE 40

Boudicca, early 1st century

Hildegard of Bingen, 1098-1179

Eleanor of Aquitaine, 1122-1204

Joan of Arc, 1412-1431

Isabella I of Spain, 1451-1504

Catherine de Medici, 1519-1589

Elizabeth I, 1533-1603

Catherine the Great, 1729-1796

Mary Wollstonecraft, 1759-1797

Jane Austen, 1775-1817

Harriet Beacher Stowe, 1811-1896

Queen Victoria, 1819-1901

Florence Nightingale, 1820-1910 ; Mary Seacole, 1805-1881

Susan B. Anthony, 1820-1906 ; Elizabeth Cady Stanton, 1815-1902

Mary Cassatt, 1844-1926

Emmeline Pankhurst, 1858-1928

Marie Curie, 1867-1934

The Famous Five: Emily Murphy, 1868-1933 ; Henrietta Muir Edwards, 1849-1931 ; Nellie Mooney McClung, 1873-1951 ; Louise Crummy McKinney, 1868-1931 ; Irene Marryat Parlby, 1868-1965

Rosa Luxemburg, 1870-1919

Helena Rubinstein, 1870-1965

Helen Keller, 1880-1968

Virginia Woolf, 1882-1941

Coco Chanel, 1883-1971

Eleanor Roosevelt, 1884-1962

Amelia Earhart, 1897-1937 ; Amy Johnson, 1903-1941

Margaret Bourke-White, 1904-1971

Katharine Hepburn, 1907-2003

Simone de Beauvoir, 1908-1986

Mother Teresa, 1910-1997

Dorothy Hodgkin, 1910-1994

Rosa Parks, 1913-2005

Jiang Qing (Madame Mao), 1914-1991

Billie Holiday, 1915-1959

Eva Perón, 1919-1952

Betty Friedan, 1921-2006

Margaret Thatcher, 1925-

Marilyn Monroe, 1926-1962

Anne Frank, 1929-1945

Dian Fossey, 1932-1985

Mary Quant, 1934-

Germaine Greer, 1939-

Mairead Corrigan, 1944- and Betty Williams, 1943-

Billie Jean King, 1943-

Benazir Bhutto, 1953-

Oprah Winfrey, 1954-

Madonna, 1958-

Diana, Princess of Wales, 1961-1997

Ellen MacArthur, 1976-