Here is a charming website offering tons of brief bios about interesting women in history.
For example, here’s a woman I’ve never heard of: Mariya Oktyabrskaya.
When the stars are all burned out and human beings are but fairy tales told by robots, somewhere there will be a list of the toughest women who ever lived. And near the top will be Sergeant Mariya Oktyabrskaya, the first women to win the Hero of the Soviet Union Award, and her tank, Fighting Girlfriend….On her first outing in the tank, she outmaneuvered the German soldiers, killing around thirty of them and taking out an anti-tank gun. When they shelled her tank, immobilizing Fighting Girlfriend, she got out — in the middle of a firefight — and repaired the damn thing. She then got back in and proceeded to kill more Germans.
Wow.
Also these sisters: The Mirabal Sisters
The Dominican Republic of the 1950s was a totalitarian nightmare. Obsessively controlled by cruel dictator Rafael Trujillo — a man for whom no slight was too small, no grudge too big — the nation’s citizens quickly grew fearful of expressing any dissent. It was not until a group of sisters slapped Trujillo in the face (both literally and figuratively) that the nation finally found the courage to follow their example and oust the despot…
Lots of interesting snippets of history at the linked site.
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I love that site! Their Disney princess- style illustrations are really fun, and even with really familiar historical figures he introduced a new angle. The book is lovely, and really nicely organized by maturity level to make it easier to screen for kids.
We watched a fictionalized movie (Las Mariposas) on the Mirabal Sisters in Spanish class (high school). The assassination scene has always haunted me.
By the time I checked that site, my daughter had already done all her research for her paper on Wu Zetian last year, but it made a fantastic reference for me in the costume I made for her to wear when presenting said paper. It was also way too easy to get sucked in to looking at all the other entries on the site instead of then getting to making the costume …
(As a side note, I must say it was an interesting challenge trying to find materials appropriate for a nine-year-old to read on Wu Zetian. I think I put in almost as much work into that paper as she did.)
I thought this post from the site about the possible historic origins of the Amazon and Gorgon myths was fascinating:
http://www.rejectedprincesses.com/blog/community/meet-the-amazons
My daughters love that site!
Everyone seems to have already known about it! It’s definitely a site I’ve bookmarked to revisit.