Grace Hopper was born on December 9, 1906 in New York City. At a very young age she showed an interest in engineering, often taking apart household goods and putting them back together. She was named a distinguished fellow of the British Computer Society, then the first person from the U.S. and first woman from any country to hold the title.
Margaret Mead was a cultural anthropologist born on December 16, 1901 in Philadelphia. Between 1925 and 1939, she studied seven cultures in the South Pacific and Indonesia, focusing on the relationship between the individual and culture.
Mary Anning unearthed the first complete ichthyosaur fossil. She found another complete ichthyosaur in 1821, two complete plesiosaurs (1823 and 1830) and the first pterodactyl found in Britain (1828), becoming important contributions to the science of paleontology. While she was not trained as a scientist, her findings changed science.
The 1950s marked the beginning of a time described as a space race between the U.S. and Russia. On July 16, 1963 aboard Vosktok 6, Valentina Tereshkova became the first woman to travel to space, completing 48 orbits around Earth. She became president of the Soviet Women’s Committee and addressed the Women’s International Democratic Federation.
Physicist/chemist Marie Curie was the first woman to win the Nobel Prize and the only woman to have won the Nobel Prize twice; for physics in 1903, and chemistry in 1911. During her lifetime, she would discover both polonium and radium. In 1994, a new element, Curium, would be named after her and husband, Pierre Curie.
