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Florence Nightingale just wanted to help. As a young woman in England in the 1840s, she saw how hard it was for poor people to get help when they were sick. She wanted to be a nurse, but her rich parents thought that the job was beneath her, that she should instead marry a wealthy man. Defying what most women of her time would do, she went to Germany to study nursing.

Born on May 12, 1820, Nightingale was smart and observant. At her first job in the early 1850s, caring for sick teachers in London, England, she became superintendent after quickly showing her talent for helping the sick get better. It was also when she developed ideas that would change healthcare forever.

The mostly male doctors of the day focused on treating the diseases patients came into the hospital with, and not necessarily on how the diseases spread. (The idea of germs spreading diseases hadn't quite caught on yet.) But while volunteering at a hospital during a cholera outbreak, Nightingale noticed that people were catching and spreading diseases inside the hospital itself. It was then she realized that dirty conditions inside hospitals might be spreading diseases, and that if hospitals were cleaner, patients might be safer.

In 1853, England and France went to war with Russia in what is now Turkey, an event called the Crimean War. Nightingale was asked to lead a team of 38 nurses at the British military hospital in Constantinople (now Istanbul, Turkey). When she arrived, she was shocked to discover that more soldiers were dying from infectious diseases like typhoid and cholera than from battle wounds. Taking charge, she had the hospital scrubbed, then created diagrams and graphs to show that if hospitals were cleaner, fewer people would die. According to some sources, because of her efforts the hospital's death rate dropped from about 40 percent to around 2 percent.

The "Lady With the Lamp"-soldiers' nickname for her because of her habit of walking dark hallways to care for them-returned to England after the war ended in 1856. Two years later she became the first woman member of the Royal Statistical Society for her use of graphs in healthcare, and in 1860 she founded the Nightingale Home and Training School for Nurses to properly train healthcare workers.

King George V sent Nightingale a personal birthday message on her 90 th birthday; she died a few months later on August 13, 1910. But even today, doctors and nurses care for patients using the safe methods that she developed, making sure that those patients' health only improves when they enter a hospital.

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Florence Nightingale just wanted to help. As a young woman in England in the 1840s, she saw how hard it was for poor people to get help when they were sick. She wanted to be a nurse, but her rich parents thought that the job was beneath her, that she should instead marry a wealthy man.

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How this journalist risked her life to report the truth

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Susan B. Anthony was called terrible names, had things thrown at her, even had her picture dragged through the streets. But still she didn't back down. She thought fighting for women's rights-and the rights of everyone-was too important.

Born in Adams, Massachusetts, on February 15, 1820, she grew up as a Quaker, which is a religion that teaches that everyone is equal. She knew it wasn't fair that she didn't have a say in electing political leaders or couldn't own property just because she was a woman. She also thought that it wasn't right that male teachers made more money than she did. In the early 1850s, Anthony starting voicing her opinion to anyone who would listen, stopping people on the streets or giving speeches around the country. She'd stand for hours to get signatures on petitions asking for women's rights.

But Anthony wanted everyone to have equal rights, so in 1856 she joined the anti-slavery movement as an abolitionist, which were people who argued against slavery. She gave speeches, organized meetings, put up posters, and handed out leaflets, even though she faced angry crowds of people who disagreed with her-and thought that women shouldn't even be speaking in public.

But her fight for equal rights for women never stopped. Anthony had met fellow activist Elizabeth Cady Stanton in 1851, and after years of talking to people about women's rights, they started a newspaper, The Revolution, in 1868 to help spread ideas of rights for women. The next year, they cofounded the National Woman Suffrage Association to focus on women's right to vote. ( Suffrage means the right to vote; people who support that are called suffragists)

African-Americans were recognized as U.S. citizens in 1870, and black men were given the right to vote with the 15th amendment. But African-American women, like all women, still did not have the right to vote. This made Anthony angry, especially since she had fought so hard to help free the slaves. So she cast her ballot in the presidential election anyway. She was arrested for the crime and fined a hundred dollars. She never paid.

Though she worked for more than 50 years for women's rights, Anthony never got to legally vote. She died on March 13, 1906, 14 years before the 19th amendment gave all women the right to vote. But the representatives of Congress-almost all men-who approved the amendment understood who was responsible for this historic moment, and the legislation was known as the "Anthony Amendment." And in 1979, Anthony became the first woman to be on a U.S. coin, the silver dollar.

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The woman who helped fight for women's right to vote

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Amelia Earhart didn't flinch. The 21-year-old was attending an air show in Canada in 1918 when a stunt plane dived right toward her. But instead of running out of the way, she faced the plane down.

That wasn't Earhart's only brave moment. Born in Kansas on July 24, 1897, she volunteered during World War I starting in 1917, treating wounded Canadian soldiers returning from the European battlefields. Nearby were pilot practice fields, where she discovered her passion for flying. After taking her first flight in 1920, she started working odd jobs to pay for flying lessons. Then, in 1923, she earned an international pilot's license, becoming one of only 16 women in the world to have one.

Aviation in the 1920s was still new-after all, the Wright brothers ' first flight had just happened in 1903-and most pilots were men. Earhart wanted to change that and in 1931 became the first president of the Ninety-Nines, an organization of female pilots. The next year, no one would ever think of pilots as "just men" again.

In 1932, Earhart took off from Newfoundland, Canada. Fifteen hours later, she landed in a cow pasture in Northern Ireland and became the first woman to fly by herself across the Atlantic Ocean. And she didn't stop there. In 1935, she became the first person to fly solo across both the Atlantic and Pacific Oceans after she flew from Honolulu, Hawaii, to Oakland, California. In fact, between 1930 and 1935, Earhart set at least five women's speed and distance flying records.

But Earhart wanted to do something even bigger. On June 1, 1937, she and navigator Fred Noonan took off from Miami, Florida, in an attempt to fly 29,000 miles around the world. By June 29, they had made it to New Guinea (now Papua New Guinea), an island north of Australia in the Indian Ocean. They had only 7,000 miles to go. But something happened as they crossed the Pacific Ocean. They set out on July 2, 1937, at 12:30 a.m., heading toward tiny Howland Island. They were never seen again.

President Franklin D. Roosevelt sent 66 aircraft and nine ships to look for them, but the fliers had vanished. The official search ended on July 18, 1937, but to this day people are still trying to solve the mystery of what happened to the woman who changed aviation history.

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How this pilot changed how high people thought women could fly

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Miep Gies was not going to stand by as the Nazis arrested people in the Netherlands and sent them to prison camps just for being Jewish. Instead, she risked her life to help them.

Born Hermine Santrouschitz on February 15, 1909, "Miep" was sent from her home in Vienna, Austria, to live with a family in the Netherlands when she was 11. At 24, she began working in Amsterdam for Otto Frank, a Jewish businessman who owned a company that made ingredients for jam. He had a daughter named Anne.

Right about that time, dictator Adolf Hitler and his Nazi party took control of Germany and began enacting laws against the Jewish people who lived there. They were banned from holding professional jobs, and many Jewish businesses were destroyed. They were even stripped of their German citizenship. Then in 1939, Germany invaded Poland, sparking World War II. Other invasions followed, including the Netherlands in 1940. Jewish men, women, and children throughout the continent were now being sent to concentration camps, where they were forced to live in cramped and dirty conditions, work long hours with little food, and even killed.

Knowing his family was in danger, Otto Frank asked Miep Gies (who had married Jan Gies in 1942) to help hide his family. She became one of several people who hid the family in a secret apartment for more than two years. Even though she would've been sent to prison-or worse-if she had been caught, Gies illegally bought meat and vegetables to sneak to the family. And she kept bringing in more Jewish people, including the family of Frank's business partner and her own dentist. Gies and her husband were also hiding a Jewish student in their home.

In 1944, the attic was discovered, and the families were sent to concentration camps. Gies again risked her life, unsuccessfully trying to bribe officials to release them. She also kept Anne's diaries, hoping she'd one day be able to return them to her.

Only Otto Frank and the student survived the Holocaust. But because of Gies, Anne Frank's The Diary of a Young Girl was published in 1947, helping to make sure the horrors of the Holocaust would not be forgotten. Gies' bravery will also never be forgotten. Throughout her life, until she died on January 11, 2010, she insisted she wasn't a hero; she was just doing what "good Dutch people" did.

( Learn more about Miep Gies and the National Geographic Channel miniseries about her life A Small Light.)

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The woman who risked her life to hide people from the Nazis

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Hypatia looked over the large crowd that had gathered to hear her speak. She was living in ancient Egypt, during a time when most women weren't encouraged to have ideas of their own. But her mathematical mind drew many people eager to hear what she had to say.

Born around 350 A.D. in Alexandria, Egypt, to a famous mathematician and philosopher, Hypatia had more freedom than many girls and women because of her respected father. Most women didn't study math or science, and they weren't allowed to engage in politics. But Hypatia became one of the first women to study and teach math, astronomy, and philosophy.

Historians don't know who Hypatia's mother was, only that she grew up with her father, Theon, who wanted to raise the "perfect human." To him, this meant someone who was physically and mentally healthy. So Theon taught Hypatia everything he knew about math, as well as how to be an influential speaker.

Hypatia worked with her father to update old textbooks with new information about geometry, algebra, and astronomy. She had a gift for breaking down complicated subjects into smaller pieces that were easier to understand. Because of this, their notes influenced mathematicians and astronomers for centuries.

As an adult, students came from all over the city to learn math and astronomy from Hypatia. She was especially respected for teaching people how to use a portable device called an astrolabe, which measured the angle between the horizon and a star or a planet. For 200 years, this device helped sailors figure out both the time of day and their location on the ocean.

Hypatia also applied mathematics to philosophy. She built on the ideas of Neoplatonism, a way of thinking based on the belief that humans form ideas from their experiences, just like how we learn 1+1=2 by putting a pair of socks together. Huge crowds attended her public lectures.

But her teachings introduced ideas that were different from Christianity, which was becoming the main religion people followed. When Cyril, a new Christian bishop, came to power in 412 A.D., Alexandria split into two groups. Cyril's main rival was Orestes, the governor of Alexandria, who was friends with Hypatia. Believing that Hypatia's philosophy influenced how Orestes governed the city, a group of Cyril's followers killed Hypatia while she was giving a public lecture in 415 A.D.

Thanks to Hypatia, women had a public voice for the first time and proved that they could have intelligent thoughts just like men did. Her notes on math and astronomy helped modern mathematicians and astronomers come up with advanced theories that are still used today.

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The woman who paved the way for female mathematicians

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Most wealthy women of the 1800s did not study math and science. Ada Lovelace excelled at them-and became what some say is the world's first computer programmer.

Born in England on December 10, 1815, Ada was the daughter of the famous poet Lord George Byron and his wife, Lady Anne Byron. Her father left the family just weeks after Ada's birth, but her mother insisted that her daughter have expert tutors to teach her math and science.

When she was 17, Ada met mathematician and inventor Charles Babbage at a town party. She was fascinated by his Difference Engine, an early version of the calculator. He soon became her mentor.

In 1835, Ada married William King, who became the Earl of Lovelace three years later, making her the Countess of Lovelace. They had three children, and even though most wives and mothers of the time worked only in the home, Ada Lovelace continued her work with Babbage.

In 1843, Babbage was developing the Analytical Engine, a more complicated version of the Difference Engine. He asked Lovelace to translate French text from his engineer into English. Lovelace not only translated the notes but added her own, signing them "A.A.L."

Some of those notes compared the design of the Analytical Engine to how weaving machines worked. Weaving machines follow patterns to make a complete design, and Lovelace imagined that the engine could also follow patterns-or codes-not only to calculate numbers, but to form letters, too. This is a very basic explanation of computer programming.

Babbage never received enough funding to complete the Analytical Engine, and Lovelace's notes were forgotten. But in 1953, her notes were republished in a book about digital computing that showed how computers work by following patterns. It turns out that long before the first computer was invented, Lovelace had come up with the idea for a computer language.

Lovelace died on November 10, 1852, more than a hundred years before her notes were rediscovered. But because of her advanced way of thinking, she's often considered the first computer programmer. In fact, in 1979, the U.S. Department of Defense named a new computer language "Ada" in her honor.

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The computer programmer who had ideas long before there were computers

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If you've ever seen your insides on an x-ray, you can thank Marie Curie's understanding of radioactivity for being able to see them so clearly.

Born Maria Sklodowska in Poland on November 7, 1867, to a father who taught math and physics, she developed a talent for science early. But the University of Warsaw, in the city where she lived, did not allow women students. Determined to become a scientist and work on her experiments, she moved to Paris, France, to study physics at a university called the Sorbonne.

In 1895, she married Pierre Curie. Together they discovered two new elements, or the smallest pieces of chemical substances: polonium (which she named after her home country) and radium. In 1903 they shared (along with another scientist whose work they built on) the Nobel Prize in physics for their work on radiation, which is energy given off as waves or high-speed particles. She was the first woman to win any kind of Nobel Prize.

Curie continued to rack up impressive achievements for women in science. In 1906, she became the first woman physics professor at the Sorbonne. In 1909, she was given her own lab at the University of Paris. Then in 1911, she won a Nobel Prize in chemistry. She's still the only person-man or woman-to win the Nobel Prize in two different sciences.

Curie soon started using her work to save lives. Her discoveries of radium and polonium were important because the elements were radioactive, which meant that when their atoms broke down, they gave off invisible rays that could pass through solid matter and conduct electricity. She used her groundbreaking understanding of radioactivity to help the x-ray take stronger and more accurate pictures inside the human body.

In 1914, during World War I, she created mobile x-ray units that could be driven to battlefield hospitals in France. Known as Little Curies, the units were often operated by women who Curie helped train so that doctors could see broken bones and bullets inside wounded soldiers' bodies.

After the war ended in 1918, Curie returned to her lab to continue working with radioactive elements. But those can be dangerous in very large doses, and on July 4, 1934, Curie died of a disease caused by radiation. By that time, though, she'd proven that women could make breakthroughs in science, and today she continues to inspire scientists to use their work to help other people.

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How this female scientist used physics to save lives

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Ruth Bader Ginsberg faced many challenges to become a lawyer. In 1956, she was one of only nine women at Harvard Law School (out of 500 students!). She and her female classmates were even banned from using one of the libraries on campus. But that didn't stop her from following her dream-which led her to become the first Jewish person and second woman to serve on the U.S. Supreme Court -the highest court in the country.

Joan Ruth Bader was born in Brooklyn, New York, on March 15, 1933. Many girls in her school were also called Joan, so she decided to go by her middle name.

Ruth's parents did not go to college. But they knew that education was important and encouraged her to learn as much as she could. She studied government while on a scholarship at Cornell University, then enrolled at Harvard Law School two years after she married her husband, Martin "Marty" Ginsburg, in 1954. After he graduated, the family moved to New York City, and Ginsburg transferred to Columbia Law School, where she graduated in 1959.

At that time, many women did not work outside their homes, and some men believed that women weren't as capable as men to work for pay. So even though Ginsburg graduated from law school with top grades, she couldn't find a job as a lawyer. Instead, she became a professor at Rutgers University in New Jersey. When students asked her to teach a class on how women were treated under the law, Ginsburg discovered some unfair practices-for instance, some working mothers weren't provided health insurance by their companies, even though their male coworkers were. This helped fuel her interest in fighting for women's equality.

While she was teaching at Rutgers, Ginsburg found out that she was being paid less than male professors. Then she found out that other women were being paid less, too! She and her female colleagues demanded equal pay from the university-and they got it.

Soon Ginsburg was fighting many cases in court to help people who were being treated unfairly because of their gender-for instance, she won a case to allow pregnant women and women with children to serve in the military. Then in 1972, she helped start the Women's Rights Project for the American Civil Liberties Union, an organization that argues for fair treatment of all U.S. citizens. Through this project, Ginsburg won five out of six gender equality cases in front of the Supreme Court.

Now people were thinking about Ginsburg whenever they thought about equal protection for women under the law. In 1980, President Jimmy Carter appointed her to the U.S. Court of Appeals (the court that hears cases from lower courts when people don't agree with the decision). Then on August 10, 1993, President Bill Clinton appointed Ginsburg to the U.S. Supreme Court.

Ginsburg was one of nine Supreme Court justices, and many times she disagreed with their decisions. But she wrote very powerful statements whenever she disagreed, called a dissenting opinion, and soon she earned the nickname the "Great Dissenter."

Sometimes those statements led to Congress passing new laws. One time in 2007, the Supreme Court heard a case from a woman named Lily Ledbetter who discovered she was being paid less than her male co-workers. Most of the Supreme Court justices said she had waited too long to come to court, and Ledbetter lost her case. But because of Ginsburg's dissenting opinion, Congress passed a law two years later changing those time limits-and therefore giving women more protection.

Ruth Bader Ginsburg served on the Supreme Court every day until her death on September 18, 2020. She was 87 years old. For days afterward, the Supreme Court grounds in Washington, D.C., were covered in flowers and messages from people all across the country, who remembered and respected how she always fought for equality and was never afraid to disagree with anyone.

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Ruth Bader Ginsberg faced many challenges to become a lawyer. In 1956, she was one of only nine women at Harvard Law School (out of 500 students!). She and her female classmates were even banned from using one of the libraries on campus.

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Sacagawea was not afraid. Although she was only 16 years old and the only female in an exploration group of more than 45 people, she was ready to courageously make her mark in American history.

In 1803, President Thomas Jefferson bought more than 825,000 square miles of land from France in what was called the Louisiana Purchase. To explore this new part of the country, Jefferson sent Meriwether Lewis and William Clark on a two-year journey to report on what they found. They needed local guides to help them through this unknown territory. Sacagawea, a young Native American, joined them.

Born to a Shoshone chief around 1788, Sacagawea had been kidnapped by an enemy tribe when she was about 12, then sold to a French-Canadian trapper. When he was hired as a guide for Lewis and Clark's expedition in 1804, Sacagawea also joined as an interpreter to talk to Native-American people on their 8,000-mile journey.

Sacagawea soon became a respected member of the group. She was skilled at finding plants for food and medicine to help keep the explorers alive. When a boat capsized on the Missouri River as they were crossing into what is now Montana, Sacagawea saved important books and much-needed supplies. When they needed horses to cross rough terrain, she convinced a Shoshone tribe-led by her long-lost brother-to give them some. She was so respected by Lewis and Clark that when they reached the Pacific Ocean in November 1805, Sacagawea was asked to cast her vote for where they should build a fort.

Sacagawea proved herself again after the group took a different route home through what is now Idaho. As they passed through her homeland, Sacagawea remembered Shoshone trails from her childhood and helped the expedition find their way through. Clark even praised her as his "pilot."

Sacagawea left the group to return to what is now Bismarck, South Dakota, before the triumphant return of Lewis and Clark to St. Louis, Missouri, in 1806. She received no pay for her services and died on December 20, 1812. But Sacagawea's bravery and skill live on in the expedition's journals, which are full of praise for the 16-year-old Shoshone girl who guided the most famous American expedition of all time.

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Sacagawea was not afraid. Although she was only 16 years old and the only female in an exploration group of more than 45 people, she was ready to courageously make her mark in American history. In 1803, President Thomas Jefferson bought more than 825,000 square miles of land from France in what was called the Louisiana Purchase.

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Born on November 30, 1924, Shirley Chisholm was the first African-American woman to serve in the United States Congress. An early education expert from New York City, Chisholm began working with local political organizations and in 1964 won a seat on the New York state legislature, representing her Brooklyn neighborhood. Four years later, she was elected to the U.S. House of Representatives.

Chisholm was outspoken and brave. Instead of accepting her seat on the Agriculture Committee-even though she represented people from a city-she complained to leaders until they reassigned her to an education committee. When she was blocked from television debates after she decided to run for president (the first African-American woman to do so), she sued. She fought for equal rights for women, minorities, immigrants, and the poor.

Serving seven terms (14 years) in Congress, Chisholm helped open up opportunities for people like President Barack Obama and Senator Elizabeth Warren. But she said she didn't want to be remembered as the first woman or African American to do something. She wanted to be remembered as someone who "had guts." She died on January 1, 2005.

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Born on November 30, 1924, Shirley Chisholm was the first African-American woman to serve in the United States Congress. An early education expert from New York City, Chisholm began working with local political organizations and in 1964 won a seat on the New York state legislature, representing her Brooklyn neighborhood.